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Definition of "spurious" [spu•ri•ous]

  • Lacking authenticity or validity in essence or origin; not genuine; false. (adjective)
  • Of illegitimate birth. (adjective)
  • Botany Similar in appearance but unlike in structure or function. Used of plant parts. (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.

Use "spurious" in a sentence
  • "Perhaps the most overwhelming distortion of the BBC in its coverage of Israel and Palestine is what I term "spurious equivalence": that the Palestinians and Israelis are two equal sides "at war" over "disputed" territory and may the best man win."
  • "My ghosts are what you call spurious ghosts (according to me the only genuine ones), of whom I can affirm only one thing, that they haunted certain brains, and have haunted, among others, my own and my friends '-- yours, dear"
  • "In other parts of his works, he speaks very doubtfully of this epistle, and in one passage, where he distributes the books into classes, he mentions it among the books which he calls spurious; by which, however, he only means that it was not canonical."