what is pseudo

"Pseudo" is a prefix that means false, pretended, or unreal. It is used to indicate something that superficially appears to be one thing, but is something else. For example, in biology and botany, the prefix "pseudo" is used to indicate a species with a coincidental visual similarity to another genus. In linguistics, the prefix "pseudo-" is applied to certain categories of loanwords in which words are used in a way that does not coincide with the way the word is used in the original language. In mathematics, the "pseudo" prefix is applied to items that are similar to something else, but not exactly that.