apocryphal
Americanadjective
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of doubtful authorship or authenticity.
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Ecclesiastical.
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(initial capital letter) of or relating to the Apocrypha.
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of doubtful sanction; uncanonical.
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false; spurious.
He told an apocryphal story about the sword, but the truth was later revealed.
adjective
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of questionable authenticity
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(sometimes capital) of or like the Apocrypha
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untrue; counterfeit
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of apocryphal
First recorded in 1580–90; apocryph(a) + -al 1
Explanation
Urban legends — stories about phantom hitchhikers, deep-fried rats, and spider eggs in bubblegum — are classic examples of apocryphal tales. They're told as if they're true, but no one can ever verify their origins or authenticity. Today, any dubious or unverifiable story may be dismissed as apocryphal. Originally, however, apocryphal was reserved for religious writings that were not included in the Torah or the New Testament of the Bible because the divinity of the texts was not certain. These texts are known as the Apocrypha and are included in the Septuagint (a Greek version of the Hebrew Bible) and the Vulgate (a Latin Bible edited in the 4th century).
Vocabulary lists containing apocryphal
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Fake It 'Til You Make It: Synonyms for "False"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“There’s this apocryphal interpretation of Mozart that suggests the music just fell into his lap,” Sharpe says, speaking on a recent Friday evening outside London’s Barbican.
From Los Angeles Times • May 15, 2026
What defines him instead are various quips, mordant jokes and accounts of bizarre behavior, many no doubt apocryphal, recorded by his admirers and detractors in the centuries after his death.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 17, 2025
Much of “Flour” is concerned with the woman’s conversation with her driver about a parable from the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas that he is translating from Coptic—a tale, he says, about emptiness and unknowing.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 14, 2025
When I first encountered this quote in a posting on X, I found it so overdetermined that I thought it must be apocryphal.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 17, 2024
But he wasn’t called anything because this is an apocryphal story, which means that it is a lie, too.
From "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
