Word of the Day

Wednesday, September 08, 1999

specious

\SPEE-shuhs\ , adjective;

Apparently right; superficially fair, just, or correct, but not so in reality; as, "specious reasoning; a specious argument."

Deceptively pleasing or attractive.

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Quotes:

None of those alleged crises really is. They all rest on specious claims about financial abstractions, on scare stories about impending bankruptcy.

-- James K. Galbraith, Created Unequal

A specious theory is confuted by this free and perfect experiment.

-- Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

His descendant later took great pride in these specious titles, and Hawthorne humorously addressed him as "the Count."

-- Edward L. Widmer, Young America

Origin:

Specious is from Latin speciosus, from species, "appearance," from specere, "to look at."