Crossword clues for meretricious
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Meretricious \Mer`e*tri"cious\, a. [L. meretricius, from meretrix, -icis, a prostitute, lit., one who earns money, i. e., by prostitution, fr. merere to earn, gain. See Merit.]
Of or pertaining to prostitutes; having to do with harlots; lustful; as, meretricious traffic.
Resembling the arts of a harlot; alluring by false show; gaudily and deceitfully ornamental; tawdry; as, meretricious dress or ornaments.
Deceptive or based on deception; seeming plausible, but based on pretense or insincerity; deceptive; misleading; insincere; specious; as, meretricious arguments. [PJC] -- Mer`e*tri"cious*ly, adv. -- Mer`e*tri"cious*ness, n.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1620s, "pertaining to harlots," from Latin meretricius "of or pertaining to prostitutes," from meretrix (genitive meretricis) "prostitute," literally "woman who earns money," from merere, mereri "to earn, gain" (see merit (n.)). Meaning "gaudily alluring" is from 1630s. Related: Meretriciously; meretriciousness.
Wiktionary
a. 1 (context obsolete English) Of, or relating to prostitutes or prostitution. 2 tastelessly gaudy; superficially attractive but having in reality no value or substance; falsely alluring.
WordNet
adj. like or relating to a prostitute; "meretricious relationships"
tastelessly showy; "a flash car"; "a flashy ring"; "garish colors"; "a gaudy costume"; "loud sport shirts"; "a meretricious yet stylish book"; "tawdry ornaments" [syn: brassy, cheap, flash, flashy, garish, gaudy, gimcrack, loud, tacky, tatty, tawdry, trashy]
based on pretense; deceptively pleasing; "the gilded and perfumed but inwardly rotten nobility"; "meretricious praise"; "a meretricious argument" [syn: gilded, specious]
Usage examples of "meretricious".
Perhaps intimate acquaintance had also tended to enable him to appreciate, with greater accuracy, the meretricious genius and artificial tastes of his copartner in The Liberal.
Nothing can be much more meretricious than its modern art, when anything is produced that is not an exact copy of something created when there was genius there.
It is not expected to raise any standard of perfection, or in any way to hamper individual development, but a body of concentrated opinion may raise the standard by promoting healthful and helpful criticism, by discouraging mediocrity and meretricious smartness, by keeping alive the traditions of good literature, while it is hospitable to all discoverers of new worlds.
Furthermore, these works of the great masters, with which he became familiar, set for him a standard by which to test the value of whatever he read, and saved him even in his earliest years from having his taste impaired and his judgment misled by the vogue of meretricious productions which every now and then gain popularity for the time.
Yet even this did not answer: even this did not close the breach: Stephen, on being routed out of bed to behold it, observed 'that it was curious how vulgar Nature could be at times - meretricious, ad captandum vulgus effects -very much the kind of thing attempted to be accomplished at Astley's or Ranelagh, and fortunately missed of'.
Before returning to the hotel, I ushered her into a little alley half-smothered in fragrant shrubs, with flowers like smoke, and was about to burst into ripe sobs and plead with her imperturbed dream in the most abject manner for clarification, no matter how meretricious, of the slow awfulness enveloping me, when we found ourselves behind the convulsed Mead twosomeassorted people, you know, meeting among idyllic settings in old comedies.