different between specious vs colourable
specious
English
Etymology
From Latin speci?sus (“good-looking”).
Pronunciation
- (UK, US) IPA(key): /?spi???s/
- Rhymes: -i???s
Adjective
specious (comparative more specious, superlative most specious)
- Seemingly well-reasoned, plausible or true, but actually fallacious.
- Synonyms: fallacious, insincere
- 1649, John Milton, Eikonoklastes:
- now to the discourse itself, voluble enough, and full of sentence, but that, for the most part, either specious rather than solid, or to his cause nothing pertinent.
- Employing fallacious but deceptively plausible arguments; deceitful.
- 1829, William Phelan, Mortimer O'Sullivan, Ireland: A digest taken before Select Committees of the two Houses of Parliament, appointed to inquire into the State of Ireland, 1824—25, in The Christian Review and Clerical Magazine, Volume III, page 472,
- But a third cause of the delusion is, that the Church of Rome has become more specious and deceitful than before the Reformation.
- 1829, William Phelan, Mortimer O'Sullivan, Ireland: A digest taken before Select Committees of the two Houses of Parliament, appointed to inquire into the State of Ireland, 1824—25, in The Christian Review and Clerical Magazine, Volume III, page 472,
- Having an attractive appearance intended to generate a favorable response; deceptively attractive.
- Synonyms: meretricious, pretextual
- 1760, William Warburton, The Lord Bishop of Gloucester's Sermon Preached Before the Right Honourable the House of Lords, January 30, 1760, page 19,
- And could any thing be more ?pecious, or more equal, than that fair di?tribution of power and profit, which men called the NEW MODEL?
- 1788, Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 59
- This argument, though specious, will not, upon examination, be found solid.
- (obsolete) Beautiful, pleasing to look at.
Derived terms
- specious present
- specious tiger (Asota speciosa, a species of moth)
Related terms
- speciosity
- speciously
- speciousness
Translations
See also
- spurious
Anagrams
- cosies up
specious From the web:
- specious meaning
- what's specious reasoning
- what's specious in german
- specious what does it mean
- what does specious
- what does specious mean in lord of the flies
- what does specious mean in a sentence
- what does specious mean in english
colourable
English
Alternative forms
- colorable (American spelling)
Etymology
From colour +? -able.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /?k?l???b(?)l/
Adjective
colourable (not comparable)
- (obsolete) Colourful.
- Apparently true; specious; potentially justifiable.
- 1612, John Smith, Proceedings of the English Colonie in Virginia, Chapel Hill 1988 (Select Edition of his Writings), p.178:
- they told him their comming was for some extraordinary tooles and shift of apparell; by this colourable excuse, they obtained 6. or 7. more to their confederacie […].
- 1612, John Smith, Proceedings of the English Colonie in Virginia, Chapel Hill 1988 (Select Edition of his Writings), p.178:
- (now rare, sometimes law) Deceptive; fake, misleading.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.iii:
- Glauce, what needs this colourable word, / To cloke the cause, that hath it selfe bewrayd?
- (law) In appearance only; not in reality what it purports to be, hence counterfeit, feigned.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.iii:
- That can be coloured.
- 1992, STACS 92, 9th Annual Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science, edited by A. Finkel and M. Jantzen, page 397:
- A circle graph with no cycle of length four is colourable with three colours.
- 1992, STACS 92, 9th Annual Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science, edited by A. Finkel and M. Jantzen, page 397:
Usage notes
The sense "that can be coloured" is more common in American than in British English.
Translations
References
- Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition.
- Oxford Dictionaries
colourable From the web:
- what is colourable legislation
- what is colourable exercise of power
- colourable devices
- what is colourable device to avoid tax
- what does colourable mean
- tolerable means
- what is a colourable law
- what is doctrine of colourable legislation
Share
Tweet
+1
Share
Pin
Like
Send
Share
you may also like
- specious vs colourable
- true vs colourable
- colorable vs colourable
- colourable vs colourableness
- color vs colorability
- photochromic vs colorability
- colorable vs colorability
- colourability vs colorability
- terms vs scavage
- scavage vs savage
- anaphoric vs anaphorically
- subrogation vs recover
- subrogation vs subordination
- arbitration vs subrogation
- surrogate vs subrogation
- subrogation vs surrogation
- subrogation vs subrogor
- subrogation vs subrogee
- towing vs towed
- hilldecent vs towing