From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Specious \Spe"cious\, adjective [L. speciosusgood-looking, beautiful, specious, fr. species look, show, appearance; cf. F. sp['e]coeux. See {Species}.]
1. Presenting a pleasing appearance; pleasing in form or look; showy.
Some [serpents] specious and beautiful to the eye. --Bp. Richardson.
The rest, far greater part, Will deem in outward rites and specious forms Religion satisfied. --Milton.
2. Apparently right; superficially fair, just, or correct, but not so in reality; appearing well at first view; plausible; as, specious reasoning; a specious argument.
Misled for a moment by the specious names of religion, liberty, and property. --Macaulay.
In consequence of their greater command of specious expression. --J. Morley.
Syn: Plausible; showy; ostensible; colorable; feasible. See {Plausible}. -- {Spe"xious*ly}, adverb -- {Spe"cious*ness}, noun
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
adjective
1: plausible but false; "specious reasoning"; "the spurious inferences from obsolescent notions of causality"- Ethel Albert [syn: {spurious}]
2: plausible but false; "a specious claim"
3: based on pretense; deceptively pleasing; "the gilded and perfumed but inwardly rotten nobility"; "meretricious praise"; "a meretricious argument" [syn: {gilded}, {meretricious}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
85 Moby Thesaurus words for "specious": Barmecidal, Barmecide, airy, alleged, apparent, apparently sound, apparitional, autistic, avowed, beguiling, casuistic, chimeric, claimed, colorable, colored, conceivable, deceptive, delusional, delusionary, delusive, delusory, dereistic, disingenuous, dreamlike, dreamy, empty, erroneous, fallacious, false, fantastic, gilded, hollow, hypocritical, idle, illogical, illusional, illusionary, illusive, illusory, imaginary, in name only, inaccurate, incorrect, insincere, jesuitic, likely, meretricious, misleading, nugatory, ostensible, overrefined, oversubtle, phantasmagoric, phantasmal, phantom, philosophistic, plausible, possible, presumable, presumed, pretended, pretexted, professed, purported, seeming, self-deceptive, self-deluding, so-called, sophistic, sophistical, spectral, spurious, superficial, supposed, supposititious, tinsel, unactual, unfounded, unreal, unsound, unsubstantial, untrue, vain, visionary, wrong
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