Speciousness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality of seeming superficially plausible or desirable but lacking real merit or truth
2. the deceptive appearance of being correct or valid
3. a false façade of legitimacy that masks a lack of substance or accuracy

Etymology: Speciousness is a English noun built by adding the suffix "-ness" to the adjective "specious," so its meaning is the quality of being specious. Yet the adjective's ancestry is more surprising than the suffix. "Specious" comes from Latin "speciosus," meaning "good-looking" or "beautiful," from "species," a word for appearance or outward form. Its core sense was attractive, showy appearance, and the notion of misleading plausibility came later, as something that looks fine on the outside but is hollow within. The Latin root connects it to a family of words about seeing and looking. "Species" is the source of "species" in the sense of kind or type, and of "special" and "spice" in more distant ways, which is one reason the word's past gives it a glossy, surface-level character. The English adjective entered the language through Old French, and the suffix "-ness" traces back to Old English "-nes," which formed abstract nouns from adjectives.

Synonyms: fallacy, deception, misleadingness, illusoriness, falseness