specious

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English specious, also speciouse,^[2] borrowed from Anglo-Norman specious and Middle French specieux, and directly borrowed from Latin speciōsus (“beautiful, showy, plausible”), according to the revised OED.^[3] Barnhart, the Middle English Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary name only the Latin adjective.^[4][2][5] The Latin adjective is formed from speciēs (“appearance, form, beauty”) and -ōsus,^[3][6] and the noun comes from speciō (“to look at”), from Proto-Indo-European *spek- (“to observe”).^[7][8] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from the first half of the 14th century in the name of the Beautiful Gate of the Temple in Jerusalem, “Porte Speciouse”.^[3][9] Compare Spanish especioso, Portuguese especioso and Italian specioso, each recorded for both "beautiful" and "specious".^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Beautiful, fair to look at, of a person or a person's form: about 1390, in a poem in the Vernon manuscript, in a salutation to the Virgin.^[3][2][4] The Middle English Dictionary also records it for "able to write beautifully", and for the specious gate of Acts 3:2.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Like Latin speciōsus, the word at first simply meant "beautiful",^[10][11] and it was praised without irony for a virgin, a young man and a gate.^[10][2] Barnhart sees the turn in the use for flowers and feathers with brilliant, gaudy colouring (from about 1513), which implies mere outward show.^[4][3] From 1601 the word was used of an appearance that makes a good impression but lacks the qualities it suggests,^[3] the same sense as in French that year,^[3] and in 1616 it was applied to language and to reasoning that sounds convincing but is unsound.^[3] Barnhart finds the sense "seemingly desirable or reasonable, but not really so" in John Speed's history of 1611,^[4] and Etymonline dates it to the 1610s.^[7] Johnson (1755) still gave both "pleasing to the view" and "plausible; superficially, not solidly right",^[12] and the OED's last record of the sense "beautiful" dates from 1889,^[3] but Trench noted in 1859 that the word now always implied a deceitful appearance and was used only in an ethical sense.^[10] Weekley compared this decline to that of sanctimonious.^[11] Since 1944 the word has also been recorded with no suggestion of attractiveness, for what is simply baseless or false.^[3] Two neutral technical uses stand apart: mathematicians from 1654 used it for algebra with letters for known and unknown terms,^[13] and psychologists since 1882 have spoken of the specious present.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1390 – beautiful, of a person.^[3][2]
• before 1450 – pleasing to look at, of a thing; the specious gate of the Temple.^[3][2]
• before 1513 – of a flower or bird, brilliantly coloured.^[3]
• 1601 – of an appearance, favourable but misleading.^[3]
• 1609 – of a pretext, designed to mislead.^[3][13]
• 1616 – of reasoning, apparently sound but actually fallacious.^[3][13]
• 1648 – of a person, given to specious conduct or reasoning.^[3]
• 1654 – of algebra, using letters for known and unknown terms.^[13]
• 1882 – specious present, in psychology.^[3]
• 1944 – fallacious, baseless, without any suggestion of plausibility.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Seeming true, fair or reasonable on the surface but actually wrong; plausible yet fallacious: The minister offered a specious excuse for the delay.^{[5][8][14][6]}
2. Attractive in appearance in a way that deceives: The new paint gave the old car a specious look of health.^[5][8][15]
3. Of a person, given to reasoning or conduct of this kind.^[3]
4. False or baseless, with no suggestion of plausibility.^[3]
5. (psychology) Seeming to be actually known or experienced, chiefly in specious present.^[3][6]
6. (obsolete, c. 1390–1889) Beautiful; pleasing to the eye.^{[3][6][15][12]}

Word family

• speciously
• speciousness
• specious present

Related words

• speciosity
• species
• spy
• special
• spice
• plausible

Usage notes

The Century Dictionary, as quoted by Etymonline, distinguished the word from plausible: what is specious looks fair at first view but is easily shown to be unsound, while what is plausible pleases the ear or the superficial judgement but will not bear severe examination.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
10. ^ a b c Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c d Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
14. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press