pseudo

pseu·do

adj \ˈsü-(ˌ)dō\

Definition of PSEUDO

: being apparently rather than actually as stated : sham, spurious <distinction between true and pseudo humanism — K. F. Reinhardt>

Examples of PSEUDO

1. <the pseudo friendliness of a salesperson trying to sell you something>
2. Here at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, you have your heads of state, your foreign ministers, your titans of business, your intellectuals (pseudo and real)—but you also have Sharon Stone, Angelina Jolie, and Richard Gere. —Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 28 Feb. 2005
3. Freemasonry, intensely popular in the eighteenth century, had inherited from earlier pseudo Egyptology a fascination with pyramids and hieroglyphs, but it defanged the occult into something harmless enough to go on the back of the great seal of the sunny-side-up American republic. —Simon Schama, New Yorker, 8 Oct. 2001
4. … whoever is deceived by the pseudo activity under Mussolini is deceived by the spasmotic last jerk of a corpse. —F. Scott Fitzgerald, letter, 19 Apr. 1925

Origin of PSEUDO

Middle English, from Late Latin pseudo-

First Known Use: 15th century

Related to PSEUDO

Synonyms: affected, assumed, bogus, contrived, factitious, fake, false, feigned, forced, mechanical, mock, phony (also phoney), plastic, pretended, artificial, put-on, sham, simulated, spurious, strained, unnatural

Antonyms: artless, genuine, natural, spontaneous, unaffected, uncontrived, unfeigned, unforced

Related Words: automatic, canned, concocted, fabricated, hokey, labored, manufactured, pat, unauthentic, unreal, unrealistic; double-dealing, empty, facile, hollow, hypocritical, insincere, left-handed, mealy, mealymouthed, two-faced, unctuous; exaggerated, histrionic, melodramatic, overacted, overdone, theatrical (also theatric); cute, cutesy, genteel, goody-goody, mincing, overrefined, simpering; conventional, formal, impersonal, inflexible, rigid, stiff, stylized, wooden; artful, calculated, conscious, cultivated, deliberate, premeditated, studied

Near Antonyms: authentic, bona fide, real, realistic, right, true; honest, ingenuous, sincere, unpretending; easy, effortless, smooth; extemporaneous, impromptu, impulsive, instinctive, unconscious, unprompted, unrehearsed, unstudied

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