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specious
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show 59 more with this conextual meaning
  • In this there was much that reminded me of the specious totality of old wood-work which has rotted for long years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from the breath of the external air.   (source)
    specious = seemingly good, but without merit
  • "It's not so much the specious arguments she makes, as the fact that she saw fit to pose the question in the first place."†   (source)
  • Any connection, no matter how specious, might be used to justify his incarceration and extend it.†   (source)
  • He said it to put an end to the specious arguments of his wife, who was once again determined to buy a dog, and he never imagined that his hasty generalization was to cost him his life.†   (source)
  • And again she pictured Tomas as if he were one of her paintings: Don Juan in the foreground, a specious stage-set by a naive painter, and through a crack in the setTristan.†   (source)
  • Instead, he wrote again, speciously insisting that blame for the controversy rested with "Publicola."†   (source)
  • This may sound specious—one may rightly think here was a young man in the blush of his first sexual love, typically conflating sensation and devotion—but I was not thinking so much of her body or even the desirous tentacled feeling of mine.†   (source)
  • Opponents of the Constitution use this excuse in their most specious arguments.†   (source)
  • What strong scientific theories, even those crafted in pop form, have in common with good stories is not some specious universality.†   (source)
  • As such, it was of course vulnerable to the same variety of glibly undaunted and usually specious evaluations that any legitimate art object is.†   (source)
  • The Japanese team, experts on the extra sensory Node, center of TP perceptivity, insisted that the Node was in curcuit with the Optic Nerve (it wasn't within two millimeters of same) and besieged Dr. Jordan with polite hissings and specious proofs.†   (source)
  • A specious pretext.   (source)
  • a specious claim
  • No, sir, but the facts might be met speciously enough.   (source)
    speciously = seemingly to indicate something, but not really proving it
  • The reasons were specious but had gotten him here.†   (source)
  • His hesitations were almost always specious.†   (source)
  • When examined, this observation will be seen as specious.†   (source)
  • This is a specious and seducing argument.†   (source)
  • Legislative usurpations might be so outrageous and rapid that there is no time for a specious spin.†   (source)
  • They would use specious arguments like warning of the danger to liberty.†   (source)
  • His voice was still soft and filled with specious humility.†   (source)
  • They sold coal by the ton and by the bag; they had stake trucks or dump trucks; they had to be convinced and sold, entertained, offered special deals, flattered, bantered, told secrets about the veins of the mines, made up with specious technical information about BTU's and ash percentages.†   (source)
  • …uniform—the tattered hat and the overalls—of his ancient curse, who had become the young man with a young man's potence yet was still that lonely child in his parchment-and-denim hairshirt, and your grandfather speaking the lame vain words, the specious and empty fallacies which we call comfort, thinking Better that he were dead, better that be had never lived then thinking what vain and empty recapitulation that would be to her if he were to say it, who doubtless had already said it,…†   (source)
  • Isn't that young lady Polly Simpson?" asked Jimmy, with specious guile.†   (source)
  • The Manager [without having understood much, but astonished by the specious argument].†   (source)
  • And thus his jealous soul speciously argued to excuse the separation of father and child.†   (source)
  • Mrs Warren's defence of herself is not only bold and specious, but valid and unanswerable.†   (source)
  • His father persisted in his conviction that a knowledge of a farmer's wife's duties came second to a Pauline view of humanity; and the impulsive Angel, wishing to honour his father's feelings and to advance the cause of his heart at the same time, grew specious.†   (source)
  • Wasn't there light in the fact which, as we shared our solitude, broke out with a specious glitter it had never yet quite worn?†   (source)
  • And at once all the newspaper men and feature writers and artists rising and whispering to each other that on the morrow the defense would start, and wondering as to who and where the witnesses were, also whether Clyde would be permitted to go on the stand in his own defense in the face of this amazing mass of evidence against him or Whether his lawyers would content themselves with some specious argument as to mental and moral weakness which might end in prison for life—not less.†   (source)
  • He mocked at his reasoning, calling it specious and "American"—his criteria of uncerebral phrase-making was that it was American.†   (source)
  • But the Puritan soldier and magistrate was not a man to be turned aside from his well-considered scheme, either by dread of the wizard's ghost, or by flimsy sentimentalities of any kind, however specious.†   (source)
  • Mr. Woodhouse must not, under the specious pretence of a morning drive, and an hour or two spent at Donwell, be tempted away to his misery.†   (source)
  • I am not sure, my dear girl, but that it may be wise and specious to preserve that outward indifference.†   (source)
  • How many times, after an equivoque, after the specious and treacherous reasoning of egotism, had he heard his irritated conscience cry in his ear: "A trip! you wretch!"†   (source)
  • Thus, the greater number of a man's errors come before him disguised under the specious form of necessity; then, after error has been committed in a moment of excitement, of delirium, or of fear, we see that we might have avoided and escaped it.†   (source)
  • Her defence of herself is so overwhelming that it provokes the St James Gazette to declare that "the tendency of the play is wholly evil" because "it contains one of the boldest and most specious defences of an immoral life for poor women that has ever been penned."†   (source)
  • In Germany, during a given period, summed up by Schiller in his famous drama The Robbers, theft and pillage rose up in protest against property and labor, assimilated certain specious and false elementary ideas, which, though just in appearance, were absurd in reality, enveloped themselves in these ideas, disappeared within them, after a fashion, assumed an abstract name, passed into the state of theory, and in that shape circulated among the laborious, suffering, and honest masses,…†   (source)
  • Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts.†   (source)
  • I have frequently amused myself both in public and private companies, with silently remarking, the specious errors of those who speak without reflecting.†   (source)
  • The king and his worthless adherents are got at their old game of dividing the Continent, and there are not wanting among us, Printers, who will be busy in spreading specious falsehoods.†   (source)
  • but speciously for Master Fenton   (source)
    speciously = seemingly good, but without merit
  • A specious pretext.   (source)
  • This specious reasoning is nevertheless false.†   (source)
  • 1 This was but another name more specious for the independence of the members on the federal head.†   (source)
  • But this observation, when examined, will appear rather specious than solid.†   (source)
  • This argument, though specious, will not, upon examination, be found solid.†   (source)
  • And since I know of no heroes about More to be praised than the truly devout And nothing at all with greater appeal Than the holy fervor of saintly zeal, So too nothing could be more odious Than the white-washed face of a zeal that's specious, Or these frank charlatans, seeking places, Whose false and sacrilegious double faces Exploit our love of God and make a game Of our reverence for Christ's holy name.†   (source)
  • The queen, whom sense of honor could not move, No longer made a secret of her love, But call'd it marriage, by that specious name To veil the crime and sanctify the shame.†   (source)
  • Firm we subsist, yet possible to swerve; Since Reason not impossibly may meet Some specious object by the foe suborned, And fall into deception unaware, Not keeping strictest watch, as she was warned.†   (source)
  • …on earth, Who against faith and conscience can be heard Infallible? yet many will presume: Whence heavy persecution shall arise On all, who in the worship persevere Of spirit and truth; the rest, far greater part, Will deem in outward rites and specious forms Religion satisfied; Truth shall retire Bestuck with slanderous darts, and works of faith Rarely be found: So shall the world go on, To good malignant, to bad men benign; Under her own weight groaning; till the day Appear of…†   (source)
  • But it is an easy thing, for men to be deceived, by the specious name of Libertie; and for want of Judgement to distinguish, mistake that for their Private Inheritance, and Birth right, which is the right of the Publique only.†   (source)
  • Yes, I warrant; speciously one of them; Mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her.†   (source)
  • The usurpations of the legislature might be so flagrant and so sudden, as to admit of no specious coloring.†   (source)
  • This argument presents itself under a very specious and seducing form; and is well calculated to lay hold of the prejudices of those to whom it is addressed.†   (source)
  • Would there be no danger of their being flattered into neutrality by its specious promises, or seduced by a too great fondness for peace to decline hazarding their tranquillity and present safety for the sake of neighbors, of whom perhaps they have been jealous, and whose importance they are content to see diminished?†   (source)
  • The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations.†   (source)
  • On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten that the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well-informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.†   (source)
  • Specious arguments of danger to the common liberty could easily be contrived; plausible excuses for the deficiencies of the party could, without difficulty, be invented to alarm the apprehensions, inflame the passions, and conciliate the good-will, even of those States which were not chargeable with any violation or omission of duty.†   (source)
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