Meretricious

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  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}.]
     1. Of or pertaining to prostitutes; having to do with
        harlots; lustful; as, meretricious traffic.
        [1913 Webster]


  
     2. Resembling the arts of a harlot; alluring by false show;
        gaudily and deceitfully ornamental; tawdry; as,
        meretricious dress or ornaments.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. 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.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  meretricious
       adj 1: like or relating to a prostitute; "meretricious
              relationships"
       2: 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}]
       3: based on pretense; deceptively pleasing; "the gilded and
          perfumed but inwardly rotten nobility"; "meretricious
          praise"; "a meretricious argument" [syn: {gilded}, {specious}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  137 Moby Thesaurus words for "meretricious":
     Gongoresque, Johnsonian, affected, apparent, bedizened, beggarly,
     beneath contempt, big-sounding, blatant, brazen, brazenfaced,
     cheap, cheesy, chintzy, coarse, colorable, colored, colorful,
     common, contemptible, convoluted, crass, crude, crummy, deceptive,
     declamatory, delusive, delusory, despicable, earthy, elevated,
     euphuistic, extravagant, fallen, flagrant, flamboyant, flaming,
     flaring, flashy, flaunting, fulsome, garish, gaudy, gilded,
     gimcracky, glaring, gorgeous, grandiloquent, grandiose,
     grandisonant, gross, harlot, high-flowing, high-flown, high-flying,
     high-sounding, highfalutin, hustling, inkhorn, insincere,
     labyrinthine, lexiphanic, lofty, loud, lurid, magniloquent, mean,
     miserable, misleading, obscene, obtrusive, on the, on the town,
     orotund, ostensible, ostentatious, overdone, overelaborate,
     overinvolved, overwrought, paltry, pathetic, pave, pedantic,
     pitiable, pitiful, plausible, pompous, poor, pretentious,
     prostitute, prostituted, raw, rhetorical, ribald, rough, rubbishy,
     rude, sad, scarlet, screaming, scrubby, scruffy, scummy, scurvy,
     scuzzy, seeming, sensational, sensationalistic, sententious,
     shabby, shameless, shoddy, showy, sonorous, sorry, specious,
     spectacular, spurious, stilted, streetwalking, tall, tawdry,
     tinsel, tortuous, trashy, trumpery, two-for-a-cent,
     two-for-a-penny, twopenny, twopenny-halfpenny, valueless, vile,
     vulgar, whorish, worthless, wretched