Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Lacking authenticity or validity in essence or origin; not genuine; false.
- adj. Of illegitimate birth.
- adj. Botany Similar in appearance but unlike in structure or function. Used of plant parts.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Not legitimate; bastard: as, spurious issue.
- Not proceeding from the true source or from the source pretended; not being what it pretends or appears to be; not genuine; counterfeit; false; adulterated.
- In zoology:
- False; resembling a part or organ, but not having its function: as, spurious eyes or limbs.
- Having the functions of an organ, but morphologically different from it: as, the spurious legs, or prolegs, of a caterpillar.
- Aborted or changed so that the normal functions no longer exist: as, the spurious or aborted front legs of certain butterflies.
- Erroneous; incorrectly established: as, a spurious genus or species. See pseudogenus.
- In botany, false; counterfeit; apparent only.
- Synonyms Spurious, Supposititious, and Counterfeit agree in expressing intent to deceive, except that counterfeit may be used with figurative lightness where no dishonorable purpose is implied. Spurious, not genuine, expresses strong disapprobation of the deception, successful or attempted. Supposititious applies only to that which is substituted for the genuine; it thus expresses a class under the spurious: a supposititious work of Athanasius is not one that is supposed to have been written by him, but one that is palmed off upon the public as being the genuine text of a work that he is known to have written; a supposititious child is a changeling; was the Tichborne claimant the genuine or a supposititious Sir Roger? Counterfeit applies also to a class under the spurious—namely, to that which is made in attempted imitation of something else: as, a counterfeit coin, bank-note, signature. Chatterton's manuscripts were spurious, but not supposititious; as they were not exact imitations of any particular manuscripts of early days, they would hardly be called counterfeit. See factitious.
Wiktionary
- adj. false, not authentic, not genuine
- adj. archaic bastardly, illegitimate
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Not proceeding from the true source, or from the source pretended; not genuine; counterfeit; false; adulterate.
- adj. Not legitimate; bastard.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. intended to deceive
- adj. born out of wedlock
- adj. plausible but false
Etymologies
- From Late Latin spurius ("illegitimate, bastardly"), from spurcus ("foul, base, low") (Wiktionary)
- From Late Latin spurius, from Latin, illegitimate, probably of Etruscan origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Perhaps the most overwhelming distortion of the BBC in its coverage of Israel and Palestine is what I term "spurious equivalence": that the Palestinians and Israelis are two equal sides "at war" over "disputed" territory and may the best man win.”
The Guardian: BBC is 'confusing cause and effect' in its Israeli coverage
“My ghosts are what you call spurious ghosts (according to me the only genuine ones), of whom I can affirm only one thing, that they haunted certain brains, and have haunted, among others, my own and my friends '-- yours, dear”
“In other parts of his works, he speaks very doubtfully of this epistle, and in one passage, where he distributes the books into classes, he mentions it among the books which he calls spurious; by which, however, he only means that it was not canonical.”
“That Eusebius recurred to this medium of information, and that he had examined with attention this species of proof, is shown, first, by a passage in the very chapter we are quoting, in which, speaking of the books which he calls spurious,”
“Makdisi rejects what he calls the spurious idea -- advanced by historian Samuel Huntington and others -- of a "Clash of Civilizations" between Islam and the West.”
“Maybe OT, but I think originally the term spurious correlation is from Pearson’s On a form of spurious correlation which may arise when indices are used in the measurement of organs.”
“During the day shoot, my team was easily on its way and during the night shoot; if not for a certain spurious character my team would have won the marksman badge along with the cash bonus.”
“A novel on more positive, constructive lines, and not emotionally spurious, is at present very difficult to imagine.”
“He remains, however, a social and psychological menace; for mere size still has a certain spurious publicity value, a base hold over the enfeebled imaginations of the crowd.”
“Unless one’s preference is for the government to be involved in spurious schemes such as selling arms to Iran and then using the proceeds to fund a terrorist movement in Central America.”
Think Progress » College Republicans create ‘W’ Day to honor Bush.
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘spurious’.
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This is not a list
you know that thing where the Eskimos have 50 words for snow?
little white lie, big lie, the Big Lie, economical with t..., muddy the waters, fabrication, deception, lies, damned lies..., façade, slander, omission, web of lies and 159 more...
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GRE 2014
abate, abdicate, abase, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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Muse's tacet ,to learn
Music brings silence's to raging thoughts and temperament , calm, as it is our object of definite purpose.
tacet, cadence, tempo, treble clef, penultimate, lexicon, origin, orchestra, kantele, magus, eros, coalesce and 248 more...
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allover
reintegrate, spight, surveillant, harmonize, Colophon, workplace, bigoted, unsighted, bridgework, salutation, voltmeter, octane and 159 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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501
Classic
abhor, mirth, obtuse, iota, vex, irk, teem, pith, moot, mete, ire, bane and 401 more...
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From reading
Collected from reading
venerate, reprobate, reticent, adoration, ethereal, ephemeral, equivocal, contumacious, heinous, solicitous, agnostic, aberration and 335 more...
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501
Classic
irk, teem, blight, pith, moot, mete, ire, bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado and 401 more...
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501
Classic
bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado, toil, onus, aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august and 401 more...
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Philosophic , etymology
every major discipline has uniquely developed esoteric nomenclature to facilitate interdisciplinary dissemination
quale , qualia, elegy, tacet, lexicon, annunciate, caste, eros, contrive, purlicue, irony, venacular, dilapidate and 567 more...
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common/uncommon GRE
Combination some common, some uncommon preparation of GRE words.
thwart, schmooze, siren, ebullient, eclectic, efficacy, adorn, felicitous, grandiloquent, eloquence, epitomize, vilify and 10 more...
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wonky words
apotheosis, apotheosize, gimcrack, Strine, denizen, hoary, epicene, spurious, scofflaw, effete, scrimshaw
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Adjectives
impressive growth, significant, outstanding, an AILING person ..., sick, a HUMBLE person -..., DISARMING critics..., VAIN - напрасный,..., unavailing, IGNOMINOUS - пост..., shameful, ignoble and 34 more...
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GRE Readings
conclusive, derivative, conviction, affected, ample, defiance, bid, conception, demean, converse, compliance, base and 133 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
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Go over
mollify, obstinate, obviate, occlude, onerous, obscure, paragon, pedantic, perfunctory, placate, placid, prodigal and 364 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for spurious.
oroboros Cf. specious. Dec 23, 2009
arj The use of "spurious" in the sense "born out of wedlock" strikes me as obsolete. Aug 29, 2009