fong kong

9.9

Not reliable and low quality, often failing or fake

adjective

Offensive

: chapucero (informal)

My phone charger turned out to be fong kong and stopped working after a week.

Examples

I can't believe he sold me such a fong kong watch.
He was called fong kong by his friends after missing their plans again.
Don't be fong kong when it comes to keeping your promises.
This product is so fong kong!
You shouldn't trust him; he's just a fong kong friend who never shows up.
After buying that fong kong furniture, I realized it wouldn’t last long.
Many customers complained about the fong kong quality of the service they received.

Synonyms

chintzy

vsfong kong

Informal

2 7.9

Cheap and poorly made, likely to fall apart quickly

is about being unreliable, flaky, or of poor quality or fake

Antonyms

reliable

342 2.7

Able to be trusted to do what is expected

How Reliable

reliable

342 2.7

flaky

Informal

7 7.0

shoddy

35 4.5

fong kong

Offensive

9.9

Surface Forms

fong kong positive

Morphology

fong + kong

Both constituents are non-English/uncatalogued items (loanwords/slang) with no transparent literal meanings in English, so a B1 learner who 'knows the constituent words' would not be able to derive the given sense. The adjective's slang/idiomatic meaning ('unreliable, fake, poor quality') is language-specific and unpredictable from the parts, making the expression opaque to learners.

Etymology

Fong kong may come from Cantonese words like fong and kong that mean 'put' and 'empty', and one popular story says the phrase made people think of a hollow, cheap thing that looks real but breaks quickly. That image of something 'empty' or fake helps explain why fong kong now means 'unreliable', 'flaky', or 'poor quality'.