Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Containing or based on a fallacy.
  • adjective Tending to mislead; deceptive.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pertaining to, of the nature of, or embodying fallacy; deceptively erroneous or misleading.
  • Of a deceptive quality; having a misleading appearance.
  • Synonyms Fallacious, Delusive, Deceptive; deceiving, deceitful, misleading, sophistical, elusory, illusive, false, disappointing. Deceptive may be used where there is or is not an attempt to deceive; in delusive and fallacious the intent to deceive is only figurative: as, a fallacious argument; a delusive hope. See deceptive.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Embodying or pertaining to a fallacy; illogical; fitted to deceive; misleading; delusive.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Characterized by fallacy; false or mistaken.
  • adjective Deceptive or misleading.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective intended to deceive
  • adjective containing or based on a fallacy
  • adjective based on an incorrect or misleading notion or information

Etymologies

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Examples

  • And conveniently forgotten in fallacious references to a cycle of violence is that — following from their oft-stated call for the destruction of Israel — Hamas, Hezbollah (which is more or less an Iranian expeditionary force), Iran itself, and the Arab confrontation states are the parties that want to change the status quo, by violence and by their own flamboyant admission.

    Why Israel Needs the Bomb Mark Helprin 2010

  • Nope, one-liners that are fallacious is the best you can muster I suppose.

    Think Progress » Van Jones to Glenn Beck: ‘I see you, and I love you, brother.’ (Updated) 2010

  • Does he not on the contrary feel a freedom of will within him, which, though you may call it fallacious, still actuates him as he decides?

    I.4a 1826

  • A few months before this time, he would have scorned the idea of concealing any part of his conduct, any one of his actions, from his best friend, Mr Percival; but his pride now reconciled him to the meanness of concealment; and here, the acuteness of him feelings was to his own mind an excuse for dissimulation: so fallacious is moral instinct, unenlightened or uncontrolled by reason and religion.

    Belinda 1801

  • About “one-way hash” arguments, there are certain fallacious arguments which look hard to debunk on first sight, but aren’t actually so.

    Climate Change and Argumentative Fallacies 2009

  • That type of argument is called a fallacious appeal to tradition, because the question is not "what has been done?" but rather "what is fair?"

    OpEdNews - Diary: On Gay Marriage ::sigh:: 2008

  • Both of these scenarios would rely upon the same evidence and upon equally fallacious, which is to say, ideological, perspectives.

    'At the Far End of this Ongoing Enterprise...' 2005

  • I can't help laughing still at the trouble I used to have in trying to find out the meaning of that word fallacious, when I was at Miss

    Under the Waves Diving in Deep Waters Francis B. Pearson 1859

  • An argument is called fallacious in four senses: (1) when it appears to be brought to a conclusion, and is not really so-what is called ‘contentious’ reasoning: (2) when it comes to a conclusion but not to the conclusion proposed-which happens principally in the case of reductiones ad impossibile: (3) when it comes to the proposed conclusion but not according to the mode of inquiry appropriate to the case, as happens when a non-medical argument is taken to be a medical one, or one which is not geometrical for a geometrical argument, or one which is not dialectical for dialectical, whether the result reached be true or false: (4) if the conclusion be reached through false premisses: of this type the conclusion is sometimes false, sometimes true: for while a false conclusion is always the result of false premisses, a true conclusion may be drawn even from premisses that are not true, as was said above as well.

    Topics 2002

  • What could be the most outstanding in Dr. Sayegh's introduction is the Biblical concept of the "Exodus" that spread throughout more than thirty centuries coupling this expression of Jewish history from one side and Biblical myths on the other, considering this so-called fallacious "Exodus" in its foundations, sources, meaning stands ashamed in front another factual, actual and felt exodus in millions of proofs, which is the exodus of three quarters of a million Palestinian Arabs forcefully and savagely uprooted by the force of arms and Zionist terror.

    Palestine Blogs aggregator 2009

Comments

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  • fuh-ley-shuhs : –adjective 1. containing a fallacy; logically unsound: fallacious arguments.

    September 22, 2008

  • of a belief that is based on faulty reasoning

    The widespread belief that Eskimos have forty different words for snow is fallacious, based on one false report.

    October 15, 2016