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PlainSpell

fogey

/ˈfoʊɡi/noun

fogey is a noun meaning “A dull person (especially an old man) who is behind the times, holding antiquated, over-conservative views” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-O-G-E-Y, and it appears about once in every 22 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of fogey is fogies or fogeys.

What does fogey mean?

noun

  1. 1

    A dull person (especially an old man) who is behind the times, holding antiquated, over-conservative views.

noun

as Fogey
  1. 1

    Alternative form of fogey.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce fogey?

  • US /ˈfoʊɡi/
  • UK /ˈfəʊɡi/

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-fogey.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of fogey

  • fogies plural
  • fogeys plural
  • fogy
  • fogie

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is fogey?

Fogey appears about once in every 22 million words in written English, the 141,699th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Fogey in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense dull old fellow:

LanguageWords
Frenchbaderne, barbon, vieux croûton, vieux schnock, vieille bique
Spanishcarcamal

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does fogey come from?

Borrowed from Scots foggie, fogie (noun), perhaps derived from Scots foggie (“covered with moss or lichen; mossy", hence "old, antiquated, decrepit”, adjective), from Scots fog (“moss; lichen”), equivalent to fog (“moss”) + -y. Further origin uncertain. More at fog.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).