specious

spe·cious

adjective \ˈspē-shəs\

Definition of SPECIOUS

1

obsolete : showy

2

: having deceptive attraction or allure

3

: having a false look of truth or genuineness : sophistic <specious reasoning>

— spe·cious·ly adverb

— spe·cious·ness noun

Examples of SPECIOUS

1. He justified his actions with specious reasoning.
2. <a specious argument that really does not stand up under close examination>
3. Forty years ago I was not yet thirty, and my father still held to the hope that I would come to my senses, abandon the practice of journalism, and follow a career in one of the Wall Street money trades. As a young man during the Great Depression he had labored briefly as a city-room reporter for William Randolph Hearst's San Francisco Examiner, and he knew that the game was poorly paid and usually rigged, more often than not a matter of converting specious rumor into dubious fact. —Lewis H. Lapham, Harper's, February 2004
4. One must always guard the interests of one's constituency in the public forum even when its claims are weak or perhaps specious, lest one's opponents steal the march in the never-ending battle for resources or public support. —Robert Jackall et al., Image Makers, 2000
5. By and large, they made these changes with specious explanations or no explanation at all. Today, when curricula list rhetoric as a subject, it usually means simply the study of how to write effectively. —Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy, (1982) 2002

Origin of SPECIOUS

Middle English, visually pleasing, from Latin speciosus beautiful, plausible, from species

First Known Use: 1513

Related to SPECIOUS

Synonyms

beguiling, deceitful, deceiving, deluding, delusive, delusory, fallacious, false, misleading, deceptive

Antonyms

aboveboard, forthright, nondeceptive, straightforward

Related Words

artful, crafty, cunning, devious, foxy, guileful, shady, shifty, slick, sly, sneaking, sneaky, subtile, subtle, trick, trickish, tricky, underhand, underhanded, wily; inaccurate, incorrect, wrong; bewildering, confounding, distracting, perplexing, puzzling; ambidextrous, crooked, defrauding, dishonest, dissembling, double-dealing, duplicitous, faithless, fast, fraudulent, knavish, lying, mendacious, untrustworthy, untruthful; bogus, counterfeit, fake, feigned, forged, jive [slang], phony (also phoney), sham, spurious; insidious, perfidious, treacherous; ambiguous, circuitous, equivocal, evasive; artificial, backhanded, hypocritical, insincere, left-handed, two-faced

Near Antonyms

candid, direct, foursquare, frank, free-spoken, open, openhearted, outspoken, plain, plainspoken, straight; clarifying, elucidative, explanatory, illuminating; revealing, revelatory; honest, trustworthy, truthful