spurious

EnglishEdit

WOTD – 27 November 2007

From Late Latin spurius (“illegitimate, bastardly”), from spurcus (“foul, base, low”).

spurious (comparative more spurious, superlative most spurious)

false, not authentic, not genuine
- 2013, Russell Brand, Russell Brand and the GQ awards: 'It's amazing how absurd it seems' (in The Guardian, 13 September 2013)[1]
  We witness that there is a relationship between government, media and industry that is evident even at this most spurious and superficial level. These three institutions support one another. We know that however cool a media outlet may purport to be, their primary loyalty is to their corporate backers. We know also that you cannot criticise the corporate backers openly without censorship and subsequent manipulation of this information.
(archaic) bastardly, illegitimate
- Milton
  her spurious firstborn

false

Afrikaans: vals
Bulgarian: фалши́в (bg) (falšív)
Catalan: espuri, fals (ca)
Chinese:
Mandarin: 虛假的 (zh), 虚假的 (zh) (xūjiǎ de), 偽造的 (zh), 伪造的 (zh) (wěizào de)
Dutch: vals (nl)
Estonian: võlts
Finnish: väärennetty (fi), väärä (fi), epäaito (fi)
French: faux (fr)
German: unecht
Greek: πλαστός (el) m (plastós), κίβδηλος (el) m (kívdilos)
Hungarian: hamis (hu)
Icelandic: óekta m, falskur m, falsaður m, tál-, fals-

Indonesian: palsu (id), tiruan (id)
Japanese: にせ物の (にせものの, nisemono no), 疑似の (ja) (ぎじの, giji no)
Korean: 거짓의 (ko) (geojis-ui), 속임수의 (ko) (sogimsu-ui), 위조된 (ko) (wijo-doen)
Maori: tipatipa
Norwegian: falsk (no), uekte
Persian: مجعول‎‎ (fa) (maj'ul)
Polish: fałszywy (pl), nieprawdziwy (pl), nieautentyczny, podrobiony
Portuguese: espúrio (pt) m
Russian: ло́жный (ru) (lóžnyj), подде́льный (ru) m (poddélʹnyj), фальши́вый (ru) (falʹšívyj)
Scottish Gaelic: meallta, mealltach
Spanish: espurio (es), falso (es), mentira (es)
Swedish: falsk (sv), förfalskad (sv), oäkta (sv)

illegitimate