ˈspyu̇rēəs, -pyür- sometimes ÷ -pər.ē- or -pə.rē- adjective
Etymology: Latin & Late Latin; Late Latin spurius false, from Latin, of illegitimate birth, from spurius, n., bastard (often used as a praenomen)
1. : of illegitimate birth : bastard
her spurious firstborn — John Milton
the dominions of both rulers passed away to their spurious or doubtful offspring — E.A.Freeman
2.
a. : outwardly similar or corresponding to something without having its genuine qualities : false , counterfeit
the true ring by which … a fossilized survival may be known from a spurious reproduction — Thomas Hardy
the spurious mechanical substitutes for knowledge and experience now provided through … the motion picture — Lewis Mumford
prone to attach a spurious novelty to the things of the moment simply because they pretend to be new — J.A.R.Pimlott
first of the … dictators to sweep to spurious glory on the upthrust of human arms — Milton Bracker
b. : simulative in symptoms or development without being pathologically or morphologically genuine
spurious labor pains
spurious species
spurious fruit
the effusion of lymph which gradually degenerates into his spurious bony deposit — Robert Chawner
3.
a. : of falsified or erroneously attributed origin or authorship : forged, inauthentic
the spurious lines and passages which scholars used to reject as contradicting the genuine parts of the story — T.A.Jones
the only known picture … albeit a spurious one had been printed some years earlier — James Monaghan
the regalia became the symbols of sovereignty over all the tribes … though their spurious nature was obvious — A.M.Young
b. : of a deceitful or fictitious nature or quality : fraudulent
one of the worst features of the religious decadence … was the craftiness of such spurious types of men — Edwin Benson
a completely spurious witness — M.S.Mayer
the spurious explanations of the astrologers — G.A.L.Sarton
c. : faulty in reasoning or conclusion : illogical , specious
spurious inferences from obsolescent notions of causality and prediction — Ethel Albert
no spurious argument, no appeal to sentiment … can deceive the American people — F.D.Roosevelt
incomplete statistical evidence leads to spurious correlations
4. : marked by spuriousness or falseness
additions which he inserted … to give them a spurious authenticity, into the original manuscript — R.D.Altick
5. : of an excrescent or superfluous character : undesirably intrusive : extraneous
the power output of a transmitter must be … free from spurious radiations — Radio Amateur's Handbk.
designed … to operate so that spurious emissions and responses are completely eliminated — W.P.Corderman
6. : irrelevantly inapplicable : lacking correspondence to reality : vaguely ambiguous : pseudo
if the terms of our discourse are incompatible or confused … then our alleged beliefs are not false, but spurious — Susanne K. Langer
if, when he utters it, he is not talking about anything, then his use is not a genuine one, but a spurious — Morris Weity
Synonyms: see counterfeit