Definition of specious
speciously
adverbspeciousness
nounFrom the M-W Editors
specious was our Word of the Day on 10/26/2006. Hear the podcast!
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Examples of specious in a Sentence
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
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
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
He justified his actions with specious reasoning.
a specious argument that really does not stand up under close examination
Recent Examples of specious from the Web
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A real revolution was finally supplanting a specious one.
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The shrinking of the Navy’s fleet is a specious claim that has been a popular Republican talking point for years.
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But exposure to difference without depth of experience can, rather than eradicating previous assumptions, inspire a person (a very young one, in my defense) to adopt some flagrantly specious metrics.
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To most clubs and their fans, such internal conflict might seem specious.
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But, in a 2011 interview with The Weekly Standard, David Koch echoed specious claims, made by conservative gadfly Dinesh D’Souza, that Obama was somehow African rather than American in his outlook.
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Each decision, from where to fly, on what date, and in which seat is presented independently, allowing the user to focus on their journey instead of a specious upsell.
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In a 5-4 opinion, the Supreme Court rejected this specious argument.
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Not a press release about a new chef or restaurant comes across my desk these days that does not use the locavore or farm-to-table boast, even when largely specious.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'specious'. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Did You Know?
Appearances can be deceptive. "Things are not always as they seem." Like these familiar proverbs, the word specious attests that English speakers can be a skeptical lot when it comes to trusting outward appearances. Specious traces to the Latin word speciosus, meaning "beautiful" or "plausible," and Middle English speakers used it to mean "visually pleasing." But by the 17th century, specious had begun to suggest an attractiveness that was superficial or deceptive, and, subsequently, the word's neutral "pleasing" sense faded into obsolescence.
Origin and Etymology of specious
Middle English, visually pleasing, from Latin speciosus beautiful, plausible, from species
First Known Use: 1513
SPECIOUS Defined for English Language Learners
specious
playDefinition of specious for English Language Learners
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: falsely appearing to be fair, just, or right : appearing to be true but actually false
Learn More about specious
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Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for specious Nglish: Translation of specious for Spanish speakers Britannica English: Translation of specious for Arabic speakers
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