speciosity

• IPA^(key): /ˌspiːʃiˈɒsɪti/
• Rhymes: -ɒsɪti

From Middle English speciouste (“attractiveness”), from Latin speciōsitās (“beauty”), from speciēs (“appearance”).^[1] By surface analysis, speci(ous) +‎ -osity.

speciosity (countable and uncountable, plural speciosities)

1. (uncountable) The state or quality of being specious. [from circa 1450]^[1]
2. (countable, rare, chiefly in the plural) A specious action, promise, ideology, etc.
   • 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “ch. 8, The Electon”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk):

     Till deep misery, if nothing softer will, have driven you out of your Speciosites into your Sincerities; and you find there either is a Godlike in the world, or else ye are an unintelligible madness;

From speciose +‎ -ity; see -osity.^[2]

speciosity (uncountable)

1. The state or quality of being speciose.
   • 1960 December 30, Carl L[eavitt] Hubbs, “Fauna Japonica/Serranidae (Pisces). By Masao Katayama. […] Fauna Japonica/Cottidae (Pisces). By Masao Watanabe. […]”, in Copeia, number 4, Philadelphia, Pa.: American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, →ISSN, →OCLC, Reviews section, page 383, column 1:

     The circumstance that the proportion of taxa with 12 + 14 vertebrae increased in the lower categories is due to the speciosity of the Epinephelinae.

   • 1988 December 15, Henry Gee, Rory Hewlett, “Palaeontology: Helping with inquiries”, in John Maddox, editor, Nature, volume 336, number 6200, London: Nature Publishing Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 617, column 1:

     [David] Jablonski’s end-Cretaceous mollusc genera suffer extinction to an equal degree, irrespective of their speciosity, geographical spread or other extinctionproof insurance policies.

   • 2000, Colin Tudge, “Series 7: kingfishers, woodpeckers, and perching birds”, in The Variety of Life: A Survey and a Celebration of all the Creatures that Have Ever Lived, Oxford, Oxfordshire; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, part II (A survey of all living creatures), chapter 22 (The modern birds: Subclass Neornithes), page 543:

     Here, then, is the old familiar pattern: one group among many expands until they outnumber all the rest. Yet the speciosity of the passerines should not be confused with ‘dominance’. Though they are, of course, immensely varied, they all essentially continue to exploit the niche of the small percher.

• “speciosity”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 2000, →ISBN.
• “speciosity”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• "speciosity" in the Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, MICRA, 1996, 1998.