- counterfeit#
- counterfeit vb feign, sham, simulate, pretend, *assume, affectcounterfeit adj Counterfeit, spurious, bogus, fake, sham, pseudo, pinchbeck, phony are comparable when meaning not at all what it is said to be or purports to be.Counterfeit implies that what is so qualified is an imitation of something else and usually of something finer, rarer, or more valuable and that the imitation is intended to deceive or defraud; thus, play money intended for the use of children at play is imitation but not counterfeit money; a clipped coin, though intended to defraud, is a real coin and not counterfeit; but a false banknote is both imitation and intended to deceive or defraud and is counterfeit{
planned to substitute a counterfeit gem for the historic original
}{the austere word of genuine religion is: save your soul! The degenerate counsel of a counterfeit religion is: salve your soul!— Sullivan
}Spurious designates something as false rather than true or genuine; it carries no strong implication of being an imitation; thus, a spurious painting is one that is falsely attributed to a well-known painter; spurious writings attributed to Shakespeare are those thrown out of a canon of his work; a spurious condition is one which only superficially resembles the genuine condition{spurious pregnancy
}The word does not necessarily connote a fraudulent purpose; it may suggest an honest mistake, confusion, or lack of scholarship{it is certain that the letter, attributed to him, directing that no Christian should be punished for being a Christian, is spurious— Arnold
}{it would have been unfair to call his enthusiasm for social reform spurious. It was real enough in its way— Galsworthy
}{no spurious argument, no appeal to sentiment . . . can deceive the American people— Roosevelt
}Bogus carries the implications of fraudulence or deceit and applies to whatever may be passed off on one or may attempt to deceive one as to its true nature{bogus cer- tificates
}{bogus statesmen
}{bogus legal actions
}{he had figured ... the night before, in red cambric and bogus ermine, as some kind of a king— Mark Twain
}{Herman Melville made a habit of breaking out, whenever he was excited, into bogus Shakespeare— Huxley
}Fake and sham are often equal to the past participial adjectives faked and shammed, both usually implying a more or less obvious imitation of something real. But fake emphasizes the idea of a false fabrication or of fraudulent manipulation{gi\efake news
}{Americans who cling to illusions about communism and its fake Utopia—/!. E. Stevenson
}{sell a fake medicine
}{a fake diamond
}and sham stresses the thinness and obviousness of the disguise, the naiveté of the deception, or often the lack of intent to imitate exactly{a sham battle
}{sham jewelry
}{a sham crown
}{a garden adorned with sham ruins and statues— L. P. Smith
}Pseudo actually means false in any way; as an adjective modifying a noun or in the combining form joined with a separate noun it frequently implies pretense rather than fraud or spuriousness rather than counterfeiting{these pseudo evangelists pretended to inspiration— Jefferson
}{luxuries which, when long gratified, become a sort of pseudo necessaries— Scott
}{o'er taste awhile these pseudo-bards prevail— Byron
}Pinchbeck implies a cheap, tawdry, or worthless imitation often of something precious, costly, or grand; it rarely implies an intent to deceive and is therefore closer to sham than to counterfeit{a pinchbeck age of poetry— Symonds
}{pinchbeck imitations of the glory of ancient Rome— Manchester Guardian
}Phony stigmatizes something which does not impose but puzzles or perplexes since it has a dubious appearance of reality{a phony message
}{a phony examination
}{journalists described as a phony war the period of relative inactivity near the beginning of World War II
}Analogous words: simulated, feigned, pretended (see ASSUME): fraudulent (see corresponding noun at DECEPTION): deceptive, *misleading, delusive, delusoryAntonyms: bona fide, genuinecounterfeit n fraud, sham, fake, *imposture, cheat, humbug, deceit, deceptionAnalogous words: *reproduction, copy, facsimile
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
