Specious

Definition: Specious

Specious

Adjective

1. Plausible but false; "specious reasoning"; "the spurious inferences from obsolescent notions of causality"- Ethel Albert.

2. Plausible but false; "a specious claim".

3. Based on pretense; deceptively pleasing; "the gilded and perfumed but inwardly rotten nobility"; "meretricious praise"; "a meretricious argument".

Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
 

Date "specious" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1509. (references)

Synonyms: Specious

Beauty

Rich, superb, magnificent, grand, fine, sublime, showy, specious.

Flattery

Blandiloquent, specious; fine-spoken, fair spoken; plausible, servile, sycophantic, fulsome; courtierly, courtier-like.

Probability

Plausible, specious, ostensible, colorable, ben trovato, well-founded, reasonable, credible, easy of belief, presumable, presumptive, apparent.

Reasoning,

Deceptive, sophistical, jesuitical; illusive, illusory; specious, hollow, plausible, ad captandum, evasive; irrelevant.

Vindication

Excusable, defensible, pardonable; venial, veniable; specious, plausible, justifiable.

Crosswords: Specious

Books

• Specious Science: How Genetics and Evolution Reveal Why Medical Research on Animals Harms Humans (reference)

• Specious tokens and those struck for general circulation, 1784-1804 (reference)

• The Specious Past: Historians and Others (reference)

  (more book examples)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

But if a long train of abuses, prevarications and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going; it is not to be wondered, that they should then rouze themselves, and endeavour to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first erected; and without which, ancient names, and specious forms, are so far from being better, that they are much worse, than the state of nature, or pure anarchy; the inconveniencies being all as great and as near, but the remedy farther off and more difficult. (Second Treatise of Government)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Expression using "specious": specious argument. Additional references.

Albanian

tip i çuditshëm, mostër më vete. (various references)

Arabic 

‏مزيف (bogus, counterfeiter, fabricated, faked, forged, imitator, phoney, sham, spurious, theatrical, unoriginal), ‏غرار (treacherous), ‏حسن المظهر (fair, presentable), ‏عينة (pattern, piece, sample, snip, specimen, swab, taking). (various references)

Bulgarian 

благовиден, показен (ostensible, ostentatious, show, showy, theatrical, trumpery), измамливо привлекателен. (various references)

Czech

zdánlivý (apparent, ostensible, seeming, unreal), vratký (groggy, halting, insecure, loose, rickety, top heavy, unstable, unsteady), pochybný (devious, disreputable, dodgy, doubtful, dubious, equivocal, murky, problematical, questionable, seamy, seedy, shady, suspect, unsavory), pìkný (fine, good looking, handsome, nice, nice-looking, pretty). (various references)

Farsi 

خوش منظروبدنهاد, ظاهرامنطقی ودرست ولی واقعاعکس ان , ظاهراصحیح , دارای ظاهرزیباوفریبنده , بطورسطحی درست . (various references)

French

spécieux, illusoire. (various references)

German

schein- (dummy, make believe, mock, phoney, phony, pseudo, sham), vordergründig bestechend, vordergründig (central, ostensible, superficial), unfundiert (unconsolidated, unfounded, unfunded, ungrounded), trügerisch (deceitful, deceptive, delusory, elusive, elusorily, elusory, fallacious, fallaciously, false, illusionary, illusive, phantasmic, treacherous), leer (bare, blank, blankly, blanks, devoid, empty, free, frothily, frothy, hollow, idle, no-op, unseeing, untenanted, vacant, vacuous, vacuously, vain, vapid, void), fadenscheinig (flimsy, poor, thin, threadbare, threadbarely, transparent). (various references)

Greek 

εύσχημοσ, ευλογοφανήσ, απατηλόσ (catchy, colorable, deceitful, deceptive, delusive, elusive, elusory, fallacious, fraudulent, hollow, illusive, illusory, tricky). (various references)

Hebrew 

מזויף (bastard, bogus, counterfeit, dummy, fake, false, forged, made up, meretricious, mock, postiche, snide, spurious), מטע�" (delusive, delusory, fallacious, illusory, misleading), � כון לכאור�". (various references)

Hungarian

megtévesztő (abuser, bewildering, deceptive, delusive, diversionary, fallacious, false). (various references)

Italian

specioso. (various references)

Pig Latin

eciousspay

Portuguese

ilusório (colorable, colourable, deceptive, delusive, elusive, misleading, skin-deep, unreal), especioso, enganador (claptrap, crater, deceitful, deceiver, deceptive, delusive, false, illusive, illusory, lying, misleading, scam artist, shuffler, skin-deep), capcioso (captious, carping, catchy). (various references)

Romanian

specios, plãcut la vedere (easy on the eye, sightly), frumos (artistic, artistical, beautiful, beautifully, bonny, brave, calm, canny, catchy, choice, clean, delicate, enjoyable, fair, fine, flowing, gay, generous, good, good looking, goodly, greatly, handsome, handsomely, lovely, merry, mild, neat, nice, nicely, personable, pretty, proper, settled, shapely, slowly, well favored, well-favoured, well-featured), aparent (apparent, apparently, conspicuous, evident, ostensible, seeming, seemingly, sham, visible), amãgitor (baffler, cheating, deceiver, deceptive, deluder, delusive, mendacious, seducer, seducing), înşelãtor (ambidexter, cheat, colourable, deceitful, deceptive, delusive, delusory, double-dealer, manipulator, mendacious). (various references)

Russian 

благовидный (colorable, colourable, plausible). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian

varljiv (fallacious, false, illusive, loaded, meretricious, misleading, treacherous, tricky), prividan (bogus, illusory, make believe, ostensible, sham). (various references)

Spanish

especioso. (various references)

Swedish

skenfager, bestickande (seductive). (various references)

Turkish

yanıltıcı (captious, colorable, elusory, fallacious, illusive, illusory, misleading, perversive, token), görünüşte iyi olan, aldatıcı (baffling, beguiling, catchy, colorable, colored, coloured, deceptive, delusive, devious, dishonest, double dealing, elusory, fake, fallacious, googly, hype, illusive, illusory, indirect, treacherous, trickish, tricksy, tricky). (various references)

Ukrainian

лицемірний (cant, canting, double dealing, double-tongued, histrionic, hypocrite, hypocritical, jesuit, left handed, self-righteous), правдоподібний (believable, credible, likely, plausible, probable, verisimilar), привабливий (alluring, amiable, appealing, appetible, appetizing, arresting, attractable, attractive, canny, captivating, catching, catchy, clean-cut, compelling, engaging, fetching, gash, likable, likeable, lovable, nice-looking, pleasing, rose colored, rose coloured, well favored, well-favoured, winning, winsome), показний (affected, catchpenny, conspicuous, flashy, imposing, meretricious, orchidaceous, ostensible, ostensive, ostentatious, portly, presentable, pretentious, showy, sporty, stagey, stagy). (various references)

Vietnamese 

chỉ có mã ngo� i, chỉ có bề ngo� i; chỉ tốt mã; chỉ có lý ở bê ngo� i. (various references)

speciosa, speciosae, speciosam, speciosas, speciosi, speciosior, speciosique, speciosis, speciosissima, speciosissimam, speciosissimas, speciositas, specioso, speciosum, speciosus. (various references)

Derivations

Words beginning with "specious": speciously, speciousness, speciousnesses. (additional references)

Misspellings

"Specious" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: sepioids, sexious, spaceous, spacous, specioous, speciosum, specius, sperious, spewcious, spicious, spiecous. (additional references)

Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

-1 letter: piceous, poussie.

-2 letters: copies, copses, cosies, coupes, cuisse, cuspis, opuses, piscos, poises, posies, scopes, scouse, spices, spouse.

-3 letters: copes, copse, coses, cosie, coupe, coups, cusps, cusso, epics, issue, pesos, pious, pisco, pisos, poise, poses, posse, puces, puses, scope, scops, scups, sepic, sices, sipes, soups, souse, specs, spice, spics, spies, spues, supes.

-4 letters: ceps, cess.

+2 letters: percussion, preciouses, speciously, supercoils, supersonic, uroscopies.

+3 letters: compulsives, copiousness, copublishes, miscomputes, pediculoses, pediculosis, percussions, perspicuous, preclusions, prosceniums, supermicros, supersonics, supertonics, suspicioned.

+4 letters: captiousness, computerises, computerists, consumership, consumptives, copublishers, counterspies, diplodocuses, discomposure, persecutions, portcullises, postulancies, preciousness, preconscious, prefocussing, prosecutions, pseudocyesis, repercussion, semiprecious, spaciousness, speciousness, speculations, subpotencies, supercilious.

+5 letters: capaciousness, conspicuities, consumerships, copiousnesses, counselorship, counterpoises, discomposures, executorships, fluoroscopies, incorruptness, microcapsules, mispronounces, nucleocapsids, packinghouses, percussionist, perspicacious, perspicuously, promiscuities, pseudoclassic, pseudoscience, rapaciousness, repercussions, stupefactions, supercautious.