How to Use specious in a Sentence

specious

adjective
  • He justified his actions with specious reasoning.
  • The claim that the merger will create more jobs is even more specious.
    — Gigi Sohn, WIRED, 10 May 2018
  • Or get hold of a completely specious list of the best this-or-that.
    — John Mariani, Forbes, 20 Feb. 2023
  • Jones’ complaints about how the city treated him are specious.
    — Lauren Ritchie, OrlandoSentinel.com, 18 June 2018
  • These days, those sorts of proclamations tend to feel more specious than ever.
    — Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 2 Dec. 2024
  • To most clubs and their fans, such internal conflict might seem specious.
    — Sam Borden, New York Times, 11 May 2016
  • Those specious bits of news found a home on mailers sent to Cleveland voters.
    — cleveland, 12 Sep. 2021
  • As ought to be well known by now, claims of mass voter fraud are specious always and everywhere.
    — Osita Nwanevu, The New Republic, 13 May 2021
  • Any complaint about my behavior, no matter how specious, could be a mark against my record.
    — Oliver Bateman, The Atlantic, 10 May 2017
  • Ah, yes, the rock star, the species (and often specious) petra stella, in the Latin.
    — Chris Jones, chicagotribune.com, 6 Apr. 2018
  • Often, those complaints prove specious.
    — Jacob Feldman, Sportico.com, 13 Nov. 2025
  • Campaign rallies have been chock-full of specious claims and fan-fiction narratives.
    — Peter Baker, New York Times, 1 Nov. 2020
  • That’s a specious argument, in my view, because the two go together.
    — Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 18 Dec. 2019
  • There’s a specious equivocation we were sold for 50 to 60 years of the drug war.
    — John Wenzel, The Know, 24 Mar. 2017
  • To argue there is no connection to the historic issue is specious and silly.
    — Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times, 21 July 2019
  • Posobiec’s book warns children against the specious promises of lupine communists.
    — Ron Charles, Washington Post, 31 Mar. 2023
  • As is invariably the case with the work of deficit hawks, Manchin’s concerns are entirely specious.
    — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 3 Sep. 2021
  • But the second claim — that a party with a nonwhite base is doomed to low turnout in off-year elections — is looking mighty specious this morning.
    — Eric Levitz, Daily Intelligencer, 13 Dec. 2017
  • In fairness, concluding no one cares is a specious take, at best, based on the evidence Tuesday.
    — Brian Hamilton, New York Times, 10 June 2026
  • Not a press release about a new chef or restaurant comes across my desk these days that does not use the locavore or farm-to-table boast, even when largely specious.
    — John Mariani, Esquire, 24 May 2011
  • Will this picture seek to nudge us in the direction of feel-good bipartisan healing — a goal that seems elusive at best and specious at worst?
    — Tribune News Service, cleveland, 11 Nov. 2020
  • So the idea that all of a sudden the introduction of slow downloads entirely cratered an industry is to me specious.
    — The Politics Of Everything, The New Republic, 27 May 2021
  • All that said, even specious arguments can have some basis in fact, and there are ways that ESG needs to mature.
    — Aron Cramer, Fortune, 20 Sep. 2021
  • But Kirkwood and director Sarah Benson leave no room for such a specious critique.
    — Sara Holdren, Vulture, 12 June 2024
  • Some even promoted the specious claim that 4-AcO was the poisoning culprit.
    — Robert Johnson, Rolling Stone, 11 Sep. 2024
  • NFTs reflect a view of the world in which anything can be monetized, even if its value is entirely specious.
    — Jacob Silverman, The New Republic, 10 Mar. 2021
  • As this team continues to receive specious praise as the best offense in the history of the league, how many players had career years from the 3-point line?
    — Tim Cowlishaw, Dallas News, 31 Aug. 2020
  • In April, cops in Georgia pulled over a busload of mostly Black college athletes for the most specious of reasons.
    — Paul Daugherty, The Enquirer, 11 May 2022
  • What if his Administration were to flood the courts with specious lawsuits, attempting to slow or stop the vote count in various states?
    — Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker, 16 Nov. 2020
  • Although your reason for avoiding it is the very essence of a specious denial, AA is not the only venue through which to confront your drinking.
    — Amy Dickinson, Washington Post, 30 Oct. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'specious.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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