SPURIOUS • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Spurious

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/spjˈʊriəs/ /spˈəriəs/ Listen

adjective

Spurious adj.

Not proceeding from the true source, or from the source pretended; not genuine; counterfeit; false; adulterate.

Not legitimate; bastard; as, spurious issue. "Her spurious firstborn."

Spurious primary, or Spurious quill (Zool.), the first, or outer, primary quill when rudimentary or much reduced in size, as in certain singing birds.

Spurious wing (Zool.), the bastard wing, or alula.

Synonyms: Counterfeit; false; adulterate; supposititious; fictitious; bastard.

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Etymology of 'Spurious'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Spurious" Quotes from Famous Books

... can have a cure without a disease. You will never get a high morality from people who conceive that their misdeeds are revocable and pardonable, or in a society where absolution and expiation are officially provided for us all. The demand may be very real; but the supply is spurious. Thus Bill Walker, in my play, having assaulted the Salvation Lass, presently finds himself overwhelmed with an intolerable conviction of sin under the skilled treatment of Barbara. Straightway he begins to try to unassault the lass and deruffianize his ...

— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw

... relative exemption from the devotional attitude is to be looked for. Those who best appreciate the merits of the higher creeds and observances would object to all this and say that the devoutness of the low-class delinquents is a spurious, or at the best a superstitious devoutness; and the point is no doubt well taken and goes directly and cogently to the purpose intended. But for the purpose of the present inquiry these extra-economic, extra-psychological ...

— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... then they should wear soft lustrous dresses that were good to look at and touch and as carefully beautiful as pictures. But this blue thing was neither sturdy covering nor the brilliant fantasy it meant to be. It had the spurious glitter of an imitation jewel. He knew he felt this irritation about her partly because there was something base in him, half innate and half the abrasion his present circumstances had rubbed on his soul, which was willing to go on this stupid sexual journey suggested by such vain, ...

— The Judge • Rebecca West

... the sources of the spurious work: "Even in that part of the book which may be admitted with probability to represent some genuine experience, there are distinct traces that another work has been made use of, more or less, as an aid ...

— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... strange affectation made her seek for a spurious confidence. She had at school a quiet, meditative, serious-souled friend called Ethel, and to Ethel must Ursula confide the story. Ethel listened absorbedly, with bowed, unbetraying head, whilst Ursula told her secret. Oh, it was so lovely, his gentle, delicate way of ...

— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

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