foo
UK[fuː]US[fuː]
n
A placeholder name for an unspecified or generic item, especially in computing and programming.
n
A nonsense word used as a sample or example, often paired with 'bar' and 'baz'.
Etymology
The term 'foo' emerged as a nonsense word in American military slang during the 1930s, possibly influenced by the similar-sounding 'fubar' (Fed Up Beyond All Recognition). It was adopted into early computing culture in the 1960s, notably at MIT, where it became formalized as the first in the standard metasyntactic variable sequence 'foo, bar, baz'. Its journey from a slang placeholder to a technical term exemplifies how jargon stabilizes and codifies informal language for precise, abstract use within a specialized community.
Analysis
This is a simplex word with no meaningful internal morphemes in English.
Examples
The function returns an error if the value of foo is null.
In the example code, replace 'foo' and 'bar' with your actual variable names.
He used 'foo' as a generic example when explaining the concept.