meretricious

meretricious

PRONUNCIATION:

(mer-i-TRISH-uhs)

MEANING:

adjective:
1. Appealing in a cheap or showy manner: tawdry.
2. Based on pretense or insincerity.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin meretricius, meretrix (prostitute), from merere (to earn money).

USAGE:

"For most of the 20th century John Singer Sargent's skills as a portraitist were deemed to be meretricious."
Waldemar Januszczak; A Dirty Old Man And the Sea?; The Sunday Times (London, UK); Jul 11, 2010.

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A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Morality is the custom of one's country and the current feeling of one's peers. Cannibalism is moral in a cannibal country. -Samuel Butler, writer (1835-1902)