apocryphal

From apocrypha +‎ -al.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /əˈpɒkɹɪfəl/, /əˈpɒkɹəfəl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /əˈpɑːkɹɪfəl/, /əˈpɑːkɹəfəl/

• Audio (US):

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apocryphal (comparative more apocryphal, superlative most apocryphal)

1. (Christianity) Of, or pertaining to, the Apocrypha.
   • 1814 July 7, [Walter Scott], chapter XXXVI, in Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since. , volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh:   James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC:

     […] ‘Tobit and his dog baith are altogether heathenish and apocryphal, and none but a prelatist or a papist would draw them into question. I doubt I hae been mista'en in you, friend.’

   • 1859, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XIX, in Adam Bede , volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC:

     Besides all this, he had read his Bible, including the apocryphal books; […]

   • 1920, Montague Rhodes James, “Introductory”, in The Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament:

     The Latins are throughout poorer. Tertullian and Cyprian will be referred to; but Jerome hates apocryphal literature, and says so, while Augustine, a valuable source of knowledge about some New Testament Apocrypha, never, it so happens, quotes spurious Old Testament literature at all.

2. (by extension) Of doubtful authenticity, or lacking authority; not regarded as canonical.

   Synonyms: allonymous, spurious

   Antonym: canonical

   Many scholars consider the stories of the monk Teilo to be apocryphal.

   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light:Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, page 11:

     The structural anthropologist urges us to ignore the orthodox who labor so patiently trying to eliminate the apocryphal variants from the one true text.

3. (by extension) Of dubious veracity; of questionable accuracy or truthfulness; anecdotal or in the nature of an urban legend.

   Synonym: anecdotal

   There is an apocryphal tale of a little boy plugging the dike with his finger.

   • 1749, [John Cleland], “”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], volume I, London: for G. Fenton  , →OCLC:

     Charles, already dispos'd by the evidence of his senses to think my pretences to virginity not entirely apocryphal, smothers me with kisses, begs me, in the name of love, to have a little patience, and that he will be as tender of hurting me as he would be of himself.

   • 1848, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “London Antiques”, in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., New York, N.Y.: C S. Van Winkle, , →OCLC:

     I confess I was a little dubious at first whether it was not one of those apocryphal tales often passed off upon inquiring travellers like myself, and which have brought our general character for veracity into such unmerited reproach.

   • 1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Story of the Door”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC:

     I took the liberty of pointing out to my gentleman that the whole business looked apocryphal, and that a man does not, in real life, walk into a cellar door at four in the morning and come out with another man’s cheque for close upon a hundred pounds.

• Apocrypha on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Apocryphal Literature in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)