Specious \Spe"cious\, a. [L. speciosusgood-looking, beautiful,
specious, fr. species look, show, appearance; cf. F.
sp['e]coeux. See Species.]
1. Presenting a pleasing appearance; pleasing in form or
look; showy.
[1913 Webster]
Some [serpents] specious and beautiful to the eye.
--Bp.
Richardson.
[1913 Webster]
The rest, far greater part,
Will deem in outward rites and specious forms
Religion satisfied. --Milton.
[1913 Webster]
2. Apparently right; superficially fair, just, or correct,
but not so in reality; appearing well at first view;
plausible; as, specious reasoning; a specious argument.
[1913 Webster]
Misled for a moment by the specious names of
religion, liberty, and property. --Macaulay.
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In consequence of their greater command of specious
expression. --J. Morley.
[1913 Webster]
Syn: Plausible; showy; ostensible; colorable; feasible. See
Plausible.
[1913 Webster] --
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
specious
adj 1: plausible but false; "specious reasoning"; "the spurious
inferences from obsolescent notions of causality"-
Ethel Albert [syn: spurious]
2: plausible but false; "a specious claim"
3: based on pretense; deceptively pleasing; "the gilded and
perfumed but inwardly rotten nobility"; "meretricious
praise"; "a meretricious argument" [syn: gilded, meretricious]
WordNet (r) 2.0
85 Moby Thesaurus words for "specious":
Barmecidal, Barmecide, airy, alleged, apparent, apparently sound,
apparitional, autistic, avowed, beguiling, casuistic, chimeric,
claimed, colorable, colored, conceivable, deceptive, delusional,
delusionary, delusive, delusory, dereistic, disingenuous,
dreamlike, dreamy, empty, erroneous, fallacious, false, fantastic,
gilded, hollow, hypocritical, idle, illogical, illusional,
illusionary, illusive, illusory, imaginary, in name only,
inaccurate, incorrect, insincere, jesuitic, likely, meretricious,
misleading, nugatory, ostensible, overrefined, oversubtle,
phantasmagoric, phantasmal, phantom, philosophistic, plausible,
possible, presumable, presumed, pretended, pretexted, professed,
purported, seeming, self-deceptive, self-deluding, so-called,
sophistic, sophistical, spectral, spurious, superficial, supposed,
supposititious, tinsel, unactual, unfounded, unreal, unsound,
unsubstantial, untrue, vain, visionary, wrong
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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