What's the difference between insincere and specious?

Insincere


Definition:

  • (a.) Not being in truth what one appears to be; not sincere; dissembling; hypocritical; disingenuous; deceitful; false; -- said of persons; also of speech, thought; etc.; as, insincere declarations.
  • (a.) Disappointing; imperfect; unsound.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In a statement, the network added: "The crackdown on activists, being directly related to the anniversary, demonstrates contempt towards international human rights norms and insincerity in the government's own pledges and commitments to promote human rights in China ."
  • (2) In London, for instance, the insincere granite cladding of Canary Wharf owes much to his example.
  • (3) The health prospects of Mubarak, who has long been ill, could have a major impact on the volatile internal politics of Egypt , where tensions between pro-reform protesters and the interim authorities – which are accused by some of being too slow in holding the Mubarak regime to account and insincere in their efforts to build democratic institutions – are threatening to bubble over.
  • (4) Did glossing over his feelings during the interview reveal Prince as insincere or more concerned with selling his album than engaging with real life?
  • (5) It took two weeks for him to address the issue publicly, while his wife Patience was accused of melodrama smacking of insincerity when she met mothers of the kidnapped girls.
  • (6) Almost anyone will say an insincere 'sorry' when they hope it will avert the loss of liberty, or a bag of sweets, or even a seat in Parliament."
  • (7) It’s what happens when weaponised insincerity is applied to structured ignorance.
  • (8) But to reach those heights and win popular backing, Sisi has been forced to adopt the vocabulary of revolution, however insincerely, and issue promises – on economic justice, an end to corruption, an improvement in living standards – that his unreformed state will not be able to deliver.
  • (9) Not because either statement is insincere: all writers genuinely want people to read their books and all law-enforcement agencies really believe they need more powers.
  • (10) All around me were other parents, similarly shouting and cheering at their mostly embarrassed little ones – and after each race triumphant handshakes, sarcastic congratulations and insincere condolences were offered.
  • (11) "The Daily Express is not in the business of conning our readers with gimmicks and insincere campaigns.
  • (12) "This seeming refusal to accept that the contents of his emails were in fact sexist and inappropriate to my mind completely undermines his public apology and leads to only one conclusion: that it was insincere and therefore unsustainable in the court of public opinion," he said.
  • (13) Iain Duncan Smith has accused David Cameron of insincerity and an attempt to deceive the public over EU immigration, as the out campaign stepped up its attacks on the prime minister’s character.
  • (14) A glance at what Smith has said in the past on certain subjects, and what he is saying about them now, has left him open to the charge of insincerity, and there were a couple of moments when he appeared to trip.
  • (15) Chief Inspector Ted Antill, of Nottinghamshire police, said: "While this recent example may be amusing, it illustrates the sort of insincere calls we have to deal with on a daily basis in the control room.
  • (16) Smith and his cronies were kept in power by a combination of white redoubt solidarity in southern Africa, deep divisions among Rhodesian-African tribal groups and guerrilla movements, irresolution in London, inertia and insincerity elsewhere - and a small group of white Rhodesian, South African and British army officers, police, security men and sanctions-busters whose cunning knew no bounds.
  • (17) Sommer, who volunteered for the Bob Dole campaign as a kid and “reluctantly” voted for George W Bush in 2004, said she found Trump’s gambit early in the 2016 primary race to sit out a debate, to ostentatiously raise money for veterans, to be insincere.
  • (18) In the preface he wrote: "I do not believe the fable that men read travel books to escape from reality: they read to escape into it, from a crazy wonderland of armaments, cant, political speeches at once insincere and illiterate, propaganda, and social injustice which the lunacy of humanity has constructed over a period of years."
  • (19) The word "sorry" – even if said insincerely – carries a sense of personal responsibility.
  • (20) Only last month, his insincere clapping upon being booked against Barcelona swiftly saw him receive his marching orders.

Specious


Definition:

  • (a.) Presenting a pleasing appearance; pleasing in form or look; showy.
  • (a.) Apparently right; superficially fair, just, or correct, but not so in reality; appearing well at first view; plausible; as, specious reasoning; a specious argument.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Comment is perfectly legitimate, but the sneering, supercilious, specious and dismissive contributions masquerading as ‘commentary’ belittle the claims of a ‘quality’ paper.” Before attempting to assess the validity of the reader’s analysis – broadly shared by some other readers – I think his email reflects one or two other interesting aspects of the demographics of the Guardian’s readership and the left.
  • (2) Photograph: Da Capo Lifelong Books This is why I have no patience for anyone who insists that women must learn self-defense moves and memorize lists of specious advice to prevent our own victimization.
  • (3) To start with, despite my son's diagnosis, the local authority did what a lot of local authorities do, and refused to assess him, on the most specious of grounds.
  • (4) Please, get rid of the gimmicks – the faux-concerned and impersonal feedback loop and the specious “choice” paradigm designed to soften us up for privatisation – and listen to your frontline staff.
  • (5) And when you ask someone who’s passed along some specious “don’t get raped” tips or suggested a self-defense class to a woman concerned about rapes in her neighborhood what they were thinking, they’re likely to respond with something like “Better safe than sorry!” Translation: Even if what I’m telling you to remember is a pile of stinking horseshit, you should still engage in this ritualized expression of anxiety with me, because it makes me feel slightly better about things I can’t control.
  • (6) Roger Jones, editor of the British Journal of General Practice David Colquhoun's critique of my journal's peer review and editorial processes is based on a single table lifted from the main research paper, in which the detailed numerical data tell a somewhat different story, rendering his analysis partial and his conclusions specious.
  • (7) Dolezal’s specious claims to black ancestry and faux black identity could not have been sustained and she would not have been able to pass if black womanhood were seen and understood as more than skin – or weave – deep.
  • (8) On Monday, two Conservative chancellors, Nigel Lawson and Norman Lamont, accused Downing Street of publishing a Treasury document that amounted to propaganda , while one MP, Marcus Fysh, described it as “specious bollocks”.
  • (9) These two findings together predict that individuals known to have a marked PMR may have the diagnostic risk associated with these specious artifacts reduced by receiving diazepam before clinical ERG studies are begun.
  • (10) There is a creeping sense that this is turning into a cash cow for the private sector, a get-out-clause for the government ("we've spent all this money, if people can't get jobs despite our help, it's because they are inadequate"), and unemployed people will be left at the bottom, ceaselessly harassed by a totally specious narrative in which their laziness beggars a try-hard administration.
  • (11) Superficially it looks like the rightwing press falling into yet another fit of specious morality.
  • (12) Retrospectively applying the rubric of terrorism is specious.
  • (13) Boris Johnson trails his quest to return to the Commons – and obviously to become Tory leader – with the specious claim that the UK could have a “great and glorious future” outside the EU .
  • (14) P+ strains of serotypes 1b (two strains), 4b (seven strains), and untypeable (one strain) were isolated from nine Apodemus specious and one Apodemus argenteus.
  • (15) Asked about the attempt to destabilise his leadership, Clegg said: "I think it's odd, to put it very mildly, that any fellow Liberal Democrat should spend time and good money while the rest of us were out campaigning for these tough elections instead surreptitiously trying to come up with specious claims on the basis of polls, which were in any case entirely confounded by the election results.
  • (16) A number of arguments as to why aggregation produces spurious correlations are considered and shown to be specious.
  • (17) Further, as Prof Dimitro Godzinsky, of the Ukranian National Academy of Sciences, states in his introduction to the report: "Against this background of such persuasive data some defenders of atomic energy look specious as they deny the obvious negative effects of radiation upon populations.
  • (18) Four specious combinations of the mosquitos were distinguished as anthropophilic, sylvatic, meadow and marsh ones.
  • (19) It should reflect the seriousness of the crime committed and the magnitude of the harm suffered by the victim, and it is specious to argue that the child is not damaged most by the sexual abuse that took place in order for the image to be created.
  • (20) Ag-Gag laws have passed or are pending in nearly a dozen states , with Idaho's powerful dairy industry now the latest to use these specious legal arguments to hide unsavory practices.