FICTITIOUS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does fictitious mean? 

• FICTITIOUS (adjective)
  The adjective FICTITIOUS has 2 senses:

1. formed or conceived by the imagination

2. adopted in order to deceive

  Familiarity information: FICTITIOUS used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FICTITIOUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Formed or conceived by the imagination

Synonyms:

fabricated; fancied; fictional; fictitious

Context example:

a fictional character

Similar:

unreal (lacking in reality or substance or genuineness; not corresponding to acknowledged facts or criteria)

Derivation:

fiction (a literary work based on the imagination and not necessarily on fact)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Adopted in order to deceive

Synonyms:

assumed; false; fictitious; fictive; pretended; put on; sham

Context example:

sham modesty

Similar:

counterfeit; imitative (not genuine; imitating something superior)

Derivation:

fiction (a deliberately false or improbable account)

 Context examples 

He knew whaling, and out of the real materials of his knowledge he proceeded to manufacture the fictitious adventures of the two boys he intended to use as joint heroes.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

To himself only was he of value, and to show how fictitious even this value was, being dead he is unconscious that he has lost himself.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Also of sitting down here, on a sofa, and seeing Traddles's hair start up, now his hat was removed, like one of those obtrusive little figures made of springs, that fly out of fictitious snuff-boxes when the lid is taken off.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

As a matter of ethics isn't the man who gives a bribe as bad as the man who takes a bribe? The receiver is as bad as the thief, you know; and you needn't console yourself with any fictitious moral superiority concerning this little deal.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Therefore it was not for any real value, but for a purely fictitious value that Judge Blount invited him to dinner.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

No book of his been published; he carried no fictitious value in their eyes.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)