pseudoscientificadj.
/ˌs(j)uːdəʊˌsʌɪənˈtɪfɪk/, U.S. /ˈˌsudoʊˌsaɪənˈtɪfɪk/ Spuriously scientific; falsely or mistakenly claimed or regarded as scientific; of or characteristic of pseudoscience.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > knowledge > branch of knowledge > systematic knowledge, science > [adjective] > false
pseudoscientific1836
woo-woo1986
1836 Times 11 May 4/3 Indifferent to everything in the world but the ‘scientific’, or the pseudo-scientific, relations between certain causes and certain consequences.
1873 Q. Rev. 135 192 The pseudo-scientific teachers of what has..been termed..the Agnostic Philosophy.
1902 Encycl. Brit. XXV. 472/1 This was the pseudo-scientific note of the new anti-Semitism, the theory which differentiated it from the old religious Jew-hatred.
1914 R. A. S. Macalister Philistines ii. 44 The pseudo-scientific hypothesis that Samson (like Achilles..and other demonstrated characters of mythology) was a solar myth.
1926 H. W. Fowler Dict. Mod. Eng. Usage 348/1 Mentality... Some like it because it is longer than mind;..and some because it has a pseudo-scientific sound about it that may impress the reader.
1996 City Paper (Baltimore) 22 May 13/1 Each statue is accompanied by an explanatory sign, written in a bizarre pidgin English that, I imagine, is supposed to lend a certain pseudoscientific quality to the captions.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2007; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.1836