Word.ws English Dictionary

pseudohistory

pseudohistory noun: false history.

Noun

pseudohistory (countable and uncountable, plural pseudohistories)

  1. (derogatory) False history.
    • When asked what could possibly justify their aggression, they responded with nothing but pseudohistory and mythology.
  2. (derogatory) Any work claiming to be a historical account without using established historiographical methods, especially one using personal speculation or questionable evidence without necessary care or concern for the truth.
    • The contemptible trick practised by Mr. Anderson, in the first chapter of his pseudo-history, must not pass without due correction.1815, Tobias George Smollett, editor, The Critical review: or, Annals of literature, volume 1, page 152
    • Also of note: 102 pulp novels by L. Ron Hubbard, 90 books by the Young Earth creationist pastor John F. MacArthur, and multiple works of aliens-built-the-pyramids pseudo-history by Erich von Däniken.2023 August 19, Alex Reisner, “Revealed: The Authors Whose Pirated Books Are Powering Generative AI”, in The Atlantic

Forms of pseudohistory

pluralpseudohistories
alternative formpseudo-history

Origin of pseudohistory

From pseudo- + history, coined around 1815, after New Latin pseudo-historia (since 1654 or earlier according to OED).

Questions about pseudohistory

What does pseudohistory mean?
Pseudohistory means false history.
What part of speech is pseudohistory?
Pseudohistory is a noun.
What is the plural of pseudohistory?
The plural of pseudohistory is pseudohistories.

Words near pseudohistory in the dictionary

  1. pseudohistorian
  2. pseudohistorians
  3. pseudohistoric
  4. pseudohistorical
  5. pseudohistories
  6. pseudohistory
  7. pseudohitchhiking
  8. pseudohole
  9. pseudoholes
  10. pseudohomolog
  11. pseudohomologs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pseudohistory (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-pseudohistory.wav.

Cite this entry: “pseudohistory.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pseudohistory. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.