What does fictitious mean?
"Fictitious" is an adjective meaning invented, imaginary, or deliberately made up rather than real. It most often signals that something has been fabricated, usually with deceptive intent: a fictitious identity on a passport, a fictitious company set up to launder money, or a fictitious alibi offered to police. In legal and business English it appears in fixed phrases such as "fictitious name" (a name adopted for trading that differs from a person's legal name) and "fictitious assets" (entries on a balance sheet representing expenses wrongly recorded as assets). The word also has a milder use, describing anything that exists only in imagination. Writers should distinguish it from "fictional": a fictional character simply belongs to a work of fiction and carries no suggestion of wrongdoing, whereas fictitious frequently implies fraud. Derived from the Latin fingere, meaning to shape or devise, it entered English in the early seventeenth century and remains a precise, formal-sounding way to say something is not what it claims to be.
adjectiveNot real or genuine; invented or imagined, especially so as to deceive. In accounting and law, it also describes something fabricated or falsely claimed to exist, such as fictitious assets or a fictitious name.
- Invented or imagined, especially with intent to deceive; not real.
- (Law/business) Fabricated or assumed for a particular purpose, as in a fictitious name or fictitious assets.
"The character Sherlock Holmes is fictitious, though he seems utterly real to devoted readers."
"She used a fictitious address on the application to hide where she really lived."
"The novel's narrator insists that any resemblance to real persons is coincidental, since all its figures are entirely fictitious."
Every fictitious name on a business license has a Latin soul — the word traces straight back to fingere, the same verb that gave us "fiction," "figure," and even "finger."
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of fictitious
"Fictitious" derives from the Latin ficticius, meaning "artificial" or "counterfeit," itself formed from the participle of fingere, "to shape, devise, or feign." That same Latin verb underlies "fiction," "figure," "figment," and "effigy," making them close cognates within English. The word entered English in the early seventeenth century, borrowed through Late Latin, and settled into its modern sense of invented or unreal.
Related word forms
How fictitious is actually used
Register is neutral-to-formal; the word appears frequently in legal, financial, and journalistic contexts. Compared with "fictional," which is neutral when describing characters in novels, "fictitious" often carries a whiff of fraud or deception, so choose it carefully when describing creative works.
Easily confused with fictitious
"Fictional" neutrally describes something belonging to fiction (a fictional detective), while "fictitious" more strongly implies something invented or fake, often with an intent to deceive.
"Factitious" means artificial or produced artificially rather than arising naturally, whereas "fictitious" means imaginary or invented; the two differ by only a few letters but not in meaning.