Definitions

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

  • adjective Concocted or fabricated, especially in order to deceive or mislead; make up.
  • adjective Of or relating to the characters, settings, or plots that are created for a work of fiction.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pertaining to or consisting of fiction; imaginatively produced or set forth; created by the imagination: as, a fictitious hero; fictitious literature.
  • Existing only in imagination; feigned; not true or real: as, a fictitious claim.
  • Counterfeit; false; not genuine.
  • Assumed as real; taking the place of something real; regarded as genuine.

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

  • adjective Feigned; imaginary; not real; fabulous; counterfeit; false; not genuine.

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

  • adjective Not real; invented; contrived.

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

  • adjective adopted in order to deceive
  • adjective formed or conceived by the imagination

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Latin fictīcius, from fictus, past participle of fingere, to form; see fiction.]

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Examples

  • Mr. Picard seeks to recover nearly $300 million in what he calls "fictitious profits" and about $700 million in principal that he says Messrs.

    Mets Owners Accuse Madoff Trustee of Distorting Evidence Michael Rothfeld 2011

  • In addition to $300 million in what he called "fictitious profits," the trustee is seeking return of their principal invested with Madoff.

    BusinessWeek.com -- Top News 2011

  • He had termed the men "net winners" - Picard charged that over their years of investing they had taken out more money than they had invested with Madoff - and was seeking $300 million in what he called "fictitious profits."

    NYT > Home Page By RICHARD SANDOMIR 2012

  • In satire we are allowed to see ourselves in fictitious or anonymous constructs of real people (Cretinous van Poopypants, anyone?).

    Today's Font Joke Is Also A Lesson 2010

  • Finally, she used her VA credit card to charge the VA for $244,380 in fictitious goods and services, payable to the fictitious business account controlled by defendant.

    Media Coverage JUNE 2009 2010

  • It's not run by Google, the ads look highly suspicious (mocked up to look like articles in fictitious newspapers) and the whole concept reads like a retread of those "all I did was place a simple ad and I made money!" schemes.

    Jean's Knitting Jean 2009

  • Dealing with injured animals, solving equine problems – sure, I can do that, for real and in fictitious circumstances.

    Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » About Me, Or Not About Me 2007

  • But, as we said above, the less men know of nature the more easily can they coin fictitious ideas, such as trees speaking, men instantly changed into stones, or into fountains, ghosts appearing in mirrors, something issuing from nothing, even gods changed into beasts and men and infinite other absurdities of the same kind.

    On the Improvement of the Understanding 2007

  • Such apparent forces were known as fictitious forces because they did not arise from a physical source such as a charge, and could be eliminated if one looked at the situation from a different reference frame, one in uniform motion called an inertial frame.

    Euclid’s Window Leonard Mlodinow 2001

  • Such apparent forces were known as fictitious forces because they did not arise from a physical source such as a charge, and could be eliminated if one looked at the situation from a different reference frame, one in uniform motion called an inertial frame.

    Euclid’s Window Leonard Mlodinow 2001

  • Against trucks, thieves use various forms of digital forgery and cyberfraud, including something called a fictitious pickup, in which someone impersonates an authorized truck driver online and reroutes a truck’s load.

    The Great Freight-Train Heists of the 21st Century By 2024

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