pseudo

adjective

pseu·​do ˈsü-(ˌ)dō How to pronounce pseudo (audio)
: being apparently rather than actually as stated : sham, spurious
distinction between true and pseudo humanismK. F. Reinhardt

Examples of pseudo in a Sentence

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
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
… 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
the pseudo friendliness of a salesperson trying to sell you something
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Many of the individual works are stellar, but the theme is so baggy as to be meaningless, and the wall labels have a rote, pseudo-academic quality. Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 14 Mar. 2023 If the tree happened to be on ancestral indigenous land, someone invented racist, pseudo-indigenous fictions to lend the tree an aura of romance. Verlyn Klinkenborg, The New York Review of Books, 2 Mar. 2023 Snooping around the fancy Manodrome mansion — where other lost souls feel a sense of pseudo-familial support — Ralphie finds a gun in Dan’s desk drawer (likely stashed there by Chekhov). Peter Debruge, Variety, 18 Feb. 2023 Sure, Faith Family plays a pseudo-national schedule, with 11 of its first 26 games against out-of-state teams. Dallas News, 31 Jan. 2023 See All Example Sentences for pseudo

Word History

Etymology

Middle English, from Late Latin pseudo-

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of pseudo was in the 15th century

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Pseudo.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pseudo. Accessed 8 Sep. 2025.

Kids Definition

pseudo

adjective
pseu·​do ˈsüd-ō How to pronounce pseudo (audio)
: not genuine : fake
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