apocryphal ə-ˈpä-krə-fəl adjective
: being of questionable authenticity
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The word apocryphal has appeared in 37 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on May 16 in the obituary “Jack Terricloth, Punk Rocker With a Cabaret Air, Dies at 50” by Ben Sisario:
To old friends who met him backstage, he was Pete Ventantonio, a punk rocker from Bridgewater, N.J. On his records, he sometimes preferred whimsical credits like Marcello DiTerriclothia or Favorite Singer Who Goes With Everything.
… The group’s self-mythologizing sometimes made its history murky. Even the name Jack Terricloth has various apocryphal origin stories. Mr. Cavallaro recalled his friend acquiring it from an old girlfriend. Others said he took the name to distinguish himself from another Pete during his early days in the New Jersey punk demimonde.
The ultimate reason seemed to matter less than the act of self-reinvention, and his audience’s being in on the act.
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word apocryphal in a sentence?
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