First Known Use: 15th century
Dictionary
pseudo
adjective pseu·do \ˈsü-(ˌ)dō\
: not real or genuine
Full Definition of PSEUDO
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Examples of PSEUDO
- Here at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, you have your heads of state, your foreign ministers, your titans of business, your intellectuals (pseudo and real)—but you also have Sharon Stone, Angelina Jolie, and Richard Gere. —Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 28 Feb. 2005
- Freemasonry, intensely popular in the eighteenth century, had inherited from earlier pseudo Egyptology a fascination with pyramids and hieroglyphs, but it defanged the occult into something harmless enough to go on the back of the great seal of the sunny-side-up American republic. —Simon Schama, New Yorker, 8 Oct. 2001
- … whoever is deceived by the pseudo activity under Mussolini is deceived by the spasmotic last jerk of a corpse. —F. Scott Fitzgerald, letter, 19 Apr. 1925
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Origin of PSEUDO
Middle English, from Late Latin pseudo-
Related to PSEUDO
- Synonyms
- affected, assumed, bogus, contrived, factitious, fake, false, feigned, forced, mechanical, mock, phony (also phoney), plastic, pretended, artificial, put-on, sham, simulated, spurious, strained, unnatural
- Antonyms
- artless, genuine, natural, spontaneous, unaffected, uncontrived, unfeigned, unforced
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