foo
intjEtymology A minced form of fuck.
1
Expression of disappointment or disgust.
- Oh foo – the cake burnt!
foo
nounUK /fuː/
Etymology
From Chinese 福 (fú, “fortunate; prosperity, good luck”), via its use as 福星 (Fúxīng, “Jupiter”) in Chinese statues of the Three Lucky Stars, picked up from c. 1935 as a nonsense word in Bill Holman's Smokey Stover comic strip, whence it was picked up by Pogo, Looney Tunes, and others. Used by Jack Speer as the name of a mock god of mimeography in the 1930s. Popularized in computing contexts by the Tech Model Railroad Club's 1959 Dictionary of the TMRC Language, which incorporated it into a parody of the Buddhist chant om mani padme hum, possibly under the influence of WWII military slang FUBAR, which had been repopularized by Joseph Heller's Catch-22.
1
Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Programming, Sciences A metasyntactic variable used to represent an unspecified entity. If part of a series of such entities, it is often the first in the series, and followed immediately by bar.
- Suppose we have two objects, foo and bar.
2
Lifestyle Slang Alternative letter-case form of Foo (“placeholder god”).
- Derived terms
- foobar
- Related terms
- FUBAR