Word of the Day for Friday, May 19, 2006 spurious \SPYUR-ee-uhs\,

adjective:

1. Not proceeding from the true or claimed source; not genuine; false.

2. Of illegitimate birth. Some of these graves are clearly spurious and were manufactured by nineteenth-century royalists who wanted evidence of an unbroken 2,000-year-old imperial line.-- Gale Eisenstodt, "Behind the Chrysanthemum Curtain", The Atlantic, November 1998 We need at least to separate the real issue from the spurious.-- Eugene D. Genovese, "Getting States' Rights Right", The Atlantic, March 2001 Well, setting aside the sentimental nostalgia that elevates the "good old days" to a spurious perfection . . . the fact remains that Nellie Melba was a unique vocal phenomenon.-- Tim Page, "For Melba a Well-Deserved Toast", Washington Post, February 9, 2003

Spurious comes from Latin spurius, "illegitimate, hence false, inauthentic." Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for spurious