Word of the Day

Monday July 19, 2010

spurious [SPYUR-ee-uhs]

adjective

The University of East Anglia welcomed the findings on Wednesday, declaring that an unjust attack on its scientists had been found spurious. Dr. Jones -- who had said he considered suicide after the e-mail messages emerged -- issued a more muted statement, saying he needed time to reflect.

Justin Gillis, "Panel, in Report, Clears Scientists of Rigging Climate Change Data", New York Times, Jul 8, 2010
When Hitchens told the audience that night that religion is "a wish to be loved more than you probably deserve," I countered that such a theme is always adopted by those deriding religion: I am a nonbeliever because I am reasonable, they say, and you are a believer because you need a crutch. Beware, I told the group, of people who explain their own beliefs by reason and others' beliefs by psychology. Hitchens insisted he was being accurate, not comprehensive; there are many other reasons to distrust religion apart from its spurious comfort.

David Wolpe, "Rabbi vs. atheist: Debating God with Christopher Hitchens", The Washington Post, Jul 4, 2010
If the man I had accepted as my brother was spurious, so was everybody-that was my deduction. For more than two years I was without relatives or friends, in fact, without a world, except that one created by my own mind from the chaos that reigned within it.

Clifford Whittingham Beers (1876 - 1943) The founder of the American mental hygiene movement. A Mind That Found Itself (1908)

Origin of the Word

Spurious, approximately 1598, derives from Latin spurius "illegitimate, false."