Specious

adjective

Appearing to be correct, virtuous, or worthwhile but not actually so; misleading
Perfidiously attractive or misleading in form

Usage

Be careful not to fall for something specious - things are not always as they appear! A perfect example is pyrite, or "fool's gold." The exterior may be shiny, and it may bear an uncanny resemblance to the real thing, so much so that a person might be tricked into thinking he'd found something valuable. But an examination of the object's true nature would reveal it to be something else entirely - much to the chagrin of the would-be entrepreneur!

In general, specious is used to refer to something that puts on a false, misleading appearance. Something that is specious at first seems to hold positive qualities like truthfulness, correctness, or value, at least on the outside. However, a closer look reveals that these characteristics are merely a sham, and that the object in question does not possess the good traits it advertises. An important implication of specious is that the façade presented is a good one: although the object's appearance may not be accurate, it is understood to be very convincing, thus making it an easy ruse for which to fall. A specious image is akin to a mirage, a shimmering oasis just ahead that, when finally reached, proves to be nothing but more desert.

Another, similar usage of specious can describe anything that puts on a distorted exterior or that appears attractive due to false claims. Much like the green light on the end of Daisy Buchanan's dock, an object so classified may promise an abundance of good things on the surface yet prove empty or disappointing in reality. For this reason, falling for something specious often yields unintended and harmful results.

Example: The chairman's specious acts of charity were designed so that no one would find out about his true, corrupt nature.

Example: Always a skeptical young boy, Tony was not fooled for an instant by the specious Santa Claus his parents showed him at the mall.

Origin

Interestingly, the original forms of specious were far more truthful than their modern counterpart. The word's earliest ancestor is the Latin term species, which, roughly translated, means "physical appearance," "form," or "attractiveness." This later gave rise to the Latin phrase speciosus, an adjective meaning "lovely" or "gaudily or showily attractive." This slight negative tint would influence the meaning of the word specious in English, as it would appear in the early seventeenth century as a word to describe something that is visually appealing yet not altogether accurate.

Derivative Words

Speciousness is a noun which describes the falsity or distortion of something that is specious. Similarly, speciously is an adverb which is used to characterize a verb as being misleading.

Example: The speciousness of Orson Welles' 1938 radio broadcast "The War of the Worlds" caused panic among scads of listeners who thought Earth was actually being invaded by aliens.

Example: Uninterested in the material covered in class, Johnny speciously hid his face behind his textbook so the teacher wouldn't see him texting.

In Literature

From J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey:

I submit that Zooey's face was close to being a wholly beautiful face. As such, it was of course vulnerable to the same variety of glibly undaunted and usually specious evaluations that any legitimate art object is.

Here, the narrator uses specious to describe the often inaccurate interpretations inspired by an object of beauty - an affirmation, perhaps, that art is by nature subjective. Or would this interpretation just be an example of the kind of specious evaluations being referred to?

Mnemonic

It's time to be suspicious; when faced with something that is specious.