English Reference

Word

spurious

Phoneticsspu·ri·ous

US/ˈspɝiəs/

UK/spjˈʊɹɪəs/

Definition

adj. not real or true. You use this to describe something that looks like it is genuine but is actually fake or not based on fact.

adj. not genuine or authentic; based on false or misleading information. Often used to describe arguments or evidence that appear valid but are actually flawed.

Examples

“The evidence was spurious and did not prove his guilt.”

“The detective realized the suspect's alibi was spurious and based on a lie.”

“The philosopher argued that the argument was spurious, as it relied on a logical fallacy rather than any actual evidence.”

Examples

simple

“The evidence was spurious and did not prove his guilt.”

contextual

“The detective realized the suspect's alibi was spurious and based on a lie.”

complex

“The philosopher argued that the argument was spurious, as it relied on a logical fallacy rather than any actual evidence.”

Real-World Examples

“Image caption, The weekend edition of the Financial Times reports that a military aircraft entering "spurious" flight data into air traffic control led to a system outage that grounded thousands of planes this week.”
BBC News · 12 Sept 2026
“In a statement, the party called the government’s claims “spurious and entirely false”.”
Al Jazeera · 18 Aug 2026

Etymology

Borrowed from Late Latin spurius (“illegitimate, bastardly”), possibly related to sperno or from Etruscan.

Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This entry

Level
C1 · Advanced
Frequency
Occasional
Updated

Scan code

englishreference.com/q/spurious

English Reference