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GRE vocabulary

spurious

adjectiveHigh-frequency wordMore S words

false or fake despite a deceptive appearance of authenticity

Word origin: From Latin spurius, illegitimate or false.

In a sentence

Spurious in a sentence

Here are example sentences showing spurious in a sentence.

The manuscript turned out to be a spurious nineteenth-century forgery.

The manuscript was exposed as spurious once chemical analysis dated the ink to the wrong century.

Synonyms
boguscounterfeitfalse
Antonyms
genuineauthentic
Usage & nuance

Using “spurious” well

Spurious means false or fake despite an appearance of authenticity, as with a forged document or a spurious correlation. It denies genuineness at the root, not merely accuracy.

Common questions

Questions about “spurious

Spurious (adjective) means false or fake despite a deceptive appearance of authenticity
Here is spurious used in an example sentence: "The manuscript turned out to be a spurious nineteenth-century forgery." Another example: "The manuscript was exposed as spurious once chemical analysis dated the ink to the wrong century."
Common synonyms for spurious include bogus, counterfeit, false.
Antonyms of spurious include genuine, authentic.
Clusters with bogus, counterfeit, and false in Sentence Equivalence. Its antonyms genuine and authentic mark the opposite; distinguish it from specious, which stresses misleading plausibility.
Yes. Spurious is a high-frequency GRE word, so it is worth prioritising as you build your vocabulary.

Learn words the way the GRE tests them.

Vocabulary sticks when you meet it in real sentences. Practise these words inside text completion and sentence equivalence questions.