spurious
spurious
adjectiveDefinition of SPURIOUS
1
being such in appearance only and made or manufactured with the intention of committing fraud <a spurious Picasso painting that wouldn't have fooled an art expert for a second>
Synonyms bogus, fake, false, forged, inauthentic, phony (also phoney), queer, sham, snide, spurious, unauthentic
Related Words artificial, factitious, imitation, man-made, mimic, mock, simulated, substitute, synthetic; dummy, nonfunctioning, ornamental; cultured, fabricated, manufactured; deceptive, delusive, misleading
2
lacking in natural or spontaneous quality <claimed that the governor's election-year enthusiasm for conservation was spurious, since he had cut funding for state parks>
Synonyms affected, assumed, bogus, contrived, factitious, fake, false, feigned, forced, mechanical, mock, phony (also phoney), plastic, pretended, pseudo, put-on, sham, simulated, spurious, strained, unnatural
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
3
born to a father and mother who are not married <the spurious son of Charles II, the Duke of Monmouth would later mount a rebellion in a disastrous attempt to claim the throne>
Antonyms legitimate
