SPECIOUS • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Specious

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/spˈiʃəs/ Listen

adjective

Specious adj.

Presenting a pleasing appearance; pleasing in form or look; showy. "Some (serpents) specious and beautiful to the eye." "The rest, far greater part, Will deem in outward rites and specious forms Religion satisfied."

Apparently right; superficially fair, just, or correct, but not so in reality; appearing well at first view; plausible; as, specious reasoning; a specious argument. "Misled for a moment by the specious names of religion, liberty, and property." "In consequence of their greater command of specious expression."

Synonyms: Plausible; showy; ostensible; colorable; feasible. See Plausible.

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Etymology of 'Specious'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Specious" Quotes from Famous Books

... no longer any misapprehension about their true character; and besides the pleasure of being wealthy and comfortable, they will have authentic recognition as vessels of sweetness and light. All this is undoubtedly specious; but I must remark that the culture of which I talked was an endeavour to come at reason and the will of God by means of reading, observing, and thinking; and that whoever calls anything else culture, may, indeed, call it ...

— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... specious arguments to induce Arch to become his accomplice in robbing the Trevlyn mansion, but the only one which had any weight was that he could thus ...

— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask

... This specious appeal was earnestly combated by the friends of the maiden, many of whom were present in the throng. Virginius, they said, was absent from Rome in the service of the commonwealth. To take such action in his absence was unjust. They would send him word at once, ...

— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... exquisite Traytors, that now stand convict on Record; the Assigns and Trustees, even of the then deceased Oliver Cromwell himself, for whose Arrears, as General of the Regicide Army, special Provision is made at the Suit of his Pensioners. Now in regard the Acts above mentioned do in a florid and specious Preamble, contrary to the known Truth in Fact, comprehend all your Majesty's Roman Catholick Subjects of Ireland, in the Guilt of those few indigent Persons aforesaid, and on that Supposition alone, by the Clause immediately subsequent to that Preamble, vest all their Estates in his late ...

— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... political propaganda, the consequent disappearance of the chorus with its burlesque trappings (largely through motives of state economy), and the establishment in the New Comedy of a type of dramatic machinery that had a specious outer shell of reflection of characters and events in daily life, the critics instantly seem to demand the standard of dramatic technique of Aristotle and Freytag and condemn all departures from this standard. ...

— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke

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