Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

fictitious

UK/fɪkˈtɪʃəs/US/fɪkˈtɪʃəs/
adjectiveC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechleans writtenformal · an editor’s judgement

Fictitious means made up and passed off as real. Not honest invention — a false claim.

That is what separates it from fictional, since a fictional character belongs openly to a story and a fictitious name is one somebody used to deceive. Law and journalism keep the distinction carefully, and fictitious invoices, fictitious employees and a fictitious address all describe fraud. The word is formal. Made-up and invented are the plain alternatives and neither carries quite the same accusation.

Definitions of fictitious

  1. 1adjectivefictitiousInvented and falsely presented as real.C2

    “The claims were supported by fictitious paperwork.”

Also accepted in games: made-up, invented

Where it comes from

  1. Latin

    fictīcius

  2. English, today

    fictitious

Borrowed from Latin fictīcius.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

fictitious in the wild

  • A pseudonym 'falsely named') or alias is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym).

    Pseudonym

  • There are more specific terms for particular kinds of fictitious entry, such as Mountweazel, trap street, paper town, phantom settlement, and nihilartikel.

    Fictitious entry

  • Kinarius was a fictitious legendary king of the Britons as recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth.

    Kinarius

  • According to general relativity theory we perceive gravitational force when spacetime is bending near heavy objects, so even this might be called a fictitious force.

    Fictitious force

  • Effectively, fictitious capital represents "accumulated claims, legal titles, to future production" and more specifically claims to the income generated by that production.

    Fictitious capital

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.