spurious
adjective
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The classical Latin adjective spurius started out as a word meaning "illegitimate." In the days of ancient Rome, it was sometimes even used as a first name for illegitimate offspring (apparently with no dire effects). There was a certain Spurius Lucretius, for example, who was made temporary magistrate of Rome. In less tolerant times, 18th-century English writer Horace Walpole noted that Henry VII "came of the spurious stock of John of Gaunt." Today, we still use spurious to mean "illegitimate," but the more common meaning is "false" (a sense introduced to spurious in Late Latin). Originally our "false" sense emphasized improper origin, and it still often does ("a spurious signature"), but it can also simply mean "fake" or "not real."
Synonyms
Examples of spurious in a Sentence
Hilary Mantel, New York Review, 21 Sept. 2006
Of all the potentially spurious phrases regularly found lurking on book jackets, none should be approached with greater wariness than "This is his first novel."
—Tony Early, New York Times Book Review, 30 Apr. 2000
I have no special interest in defending modern finance theory, but I think it is important to get this straight, lest Soros's own ideas acquire spurious validity as a practical corrective to academic moonshine.
—Robert M. Solow, New Republic, 12 Apr. 1999
a spurious Picasso painting that wouldn't have fooled an art expert for a second
claimed that the governor's election-year enthusiasm for conservation was spurious, since he had cut funding for state parks
Blake D. Morant, Forbes, 11 Sep. 2024
Yet none of the genomes showed more than one percent European ancestry, a fraction low enough to be ascribed to a spurious statistical fluke.
—John Timmer, Ars Technica, 11 Sep. 2024
Social media users have made spurious links between the selection of a Labour government in this year’s general election and that of Oasis’ return.
—Thomas Smith, Billboard, 6 Sep. 2024
But this latest scandal illustrates the potential pitfalls and dangers that AI poses to many industries, including journalism, as chatbots can spit out spurious if somewhat plausible articles with only a few prompts.
—CBS News, 14 Aug. 2024
See all Example Sentences for spurious 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'spurious.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Spurious.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spurious. Accessed 26 Sep. 2024.
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spurious
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