Lost Word of the Day - Affictitious

So for the month of April, I'm going to toss out a different lost word every day. I'll go through the alphabet, and then after the 26th revisit the main list of Lost Words and pop in some random ones. Since today's the 1st, we'll start with a word that begins with A.

affictitious	adj	1656 -1656
feigned; counterfeit
The forger was caught despite his masterfully-crafted affictitious signatures.

I used to print out affictitious documents that made my car appear legal when it was not. These documents included, but were certainly not limited to, insurance papers, inspection stickers, registration cards, and license plate decals. Before you think that I was lucky for never being caught, I'll share that I was caught, numerous times. It's only by God's grace that I managed to talk myself out of a ticket -- or worse.

This topic came up a few months ago when my husband and I went to renew the tags on our vehicles. He remarked in surprise that we were both legal and on time for yet another year. And then he reminded me about how I used to just make us appear to be legal thanks to the magic of (my not-quite-legal copy of) Photoshop.

Fortunately the statute of limitations has long since expired for my past misdeeds. These days I am much more responsible. Almost grown-up, even. And it only took 40 years.