Definition of "apocryphal" []

• Of questionable authorship or authenticity. (adjective)
• Erroneous; fictitious: "Wildly apocryphal rumors about starvation in Petrograd . . . raced through Russia's trenches” ( W. Bruce Lincoln). (adjective)
• Bible Of or having to do with the Apocrypha. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The term apocryphal in connection with special Gospels must be understood as bearing no more unfavourable an import than"
• "The original and proper sense of the term apocryphal as applied to the pretended sacred books was early obscured."
• "The same is the opinion of the Jews respecting the other books, which we call apocryphal, as is manifest from all the copies of the Hebrew Bible extant; for, undoubtedly if they believed that any of these books were canonical, they would give them a place in their sacred volume."