supposititious

adj

1. (obsolete)Spurious; substituted for the genuine, counterfeit; fake.

   “[...] the said pretended Testament was supposititious, & contriued by such as meant to defraud both the heires female of the said king Henrie the 8. as well as these of his eldest sister [...]”

   “But it may bee some will here obiect and say; that the Haire, and Loue-lockes which they weare, are supposititious, false, and counterfeit, and not their owne: therefore they violate no Law of God, nor Nature, since the long Haire they vse, is but borrowed, and aduenticious, their owne being short enough: perchance, but little or none at all.”

   “[T]he queen [Mary of Modena] was brought to bed of a ſon, who was baptiſed by the name of James. This would, if any thing could at that time, have ſerved to eſtabliſh him on the throne; but so great was the animoſity againſt him, that a ſtory was propagated that the child was ſuppoſititious, and brought to the queen's apartment in a warming-pan.”

   “These supposititious children of the semigods are called Umskiptingar; whence nurses and midwives were strictly enjoined to watch constantly, and to hold the infant firmly in their arms, till it had had the benefit of baptism, lest they should furnish any opportunity for such a change.”

2. (obsolete)Imaginary; fictitious, pretended to exist.

   “His good sense had pointed out to him the artifices of the monks, and the gross absurdity of their miracles, wonders, and supposititious reliques.”

   “1836, Edgar Allan Poe, Review of Joseph Rodman Drake, The Culprit Fay, and other Poems and Fitz-Greene Halleck, Alnwick Castle, with other Poems in Southern Literary Messenger, Volume 2, No. 5, April 1836, pp. 327-328, … we discover in all men a disposition to look with reverence upon superiority, whether real or supposititious.”

   “The following story was the first fruit of my New York life when I began to live it after my quarter of a century in Cambridge and Boston, ending in 1889; and I used my own transition to the commercial metropolis in framing the experience which was wholly that of my supposititious literary adventurer.”

3. (archaic)Supposed or hypothetical.

   “You might hope to get some other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind, or Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (all supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of Thomas Gradgrind—no, sir!”

   ““Why this particular problem, Speaker? It obviously has significance other than purely academic.” “Thank you, my boy. You are as quick as I had expected. The problem is not supposititious.””