phony vs real thing

phony

noun
  • A person who professes beliefs or opinions that they do not hold. 

  • Anything fraudulent or fake. 

  • A person who assumes an identity or quality other than their own. 

verb
  • To fake. 

adj
  • Fraudulent; fake; having a misleading appearance. 

real thing

noun
  • Something genuine and of high quality, as opposed to an inferior imitation. 

How often have the words phony and real thing occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )