meretricious
adjective
Carolyn SeeRoderick BeatonDavid Ansen
Richard Todd
Did you know?
Meretricious can be traced back to the Latin verb merēre, meaning "to earn, gain, or deserve." It shares this origin with a small group of other English words, including merit, meritorious, and emeritus. But, while these words can suggest some degree of honor or esteem, meretricious is used to suggest pretense, insincerity, and cheap or tawdry ornamentation. The Latin merēre is at the root of the Latin noun meretrīx, meaning "woman who engages in sex for financial considerations," and its related adjective meretrīcius ("of or relating to such a woman"). The Latin meretrīcius entered into English as meretricious in the 17th century. Shortly after being adopted, meretricious also began to be used to indicate things which are superficially attractive but which have little or no value or integrity.
Examples of meretricious in a Sentence
Zoe Guy, Vulture, 1 July 2024
But as a character study, with Holocaust themes deepening the stakes of the domestic turmoil, the play holds up extremely well in its critique of a world that has lost its capacity for silence and that is prepared to sacrifice literature for meretricious distraction.
—Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 16 July 2024
The heads of banks, corporations, universities, law firms, foundations, and media companies were neither more nor less venal, meretricious, and greedy than their counterparts today.
—George Packer, Foreign Affairs, 11 Oct. 2011
The bullying tactics being used to sell this boondoggle are underhanded and meretricious.
—Letters To The Editor, The Mercury News, 25 Jan. 2024
These shows raised the bar for musical drama and proved to Broadway that meretricious soullessness isn’t the only way.
—Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 15 Dec. 2023
You’re left with a feeling of overwhelming perversity, of a kind of meretricious, insane God out there playing games.
—Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 19 Oct. 2023
By condescending to the twins’ evident lack of cultural exposure, the media compound a circumstance that suggests remote parental influence — and dereliction of our rapaciously indifferent consumer culture that sells only what is new and meretricious.
—Armond White, National Review, 28 Aug. 2020
Today’s sleek, simple anti-It Bags, on the other hand, telegraph a less meretricious sort of chic.
—Fiorella Valdesolo, WSJ, 7 Jan. 2023
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Cite this Entry
“Meretricious.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meretricious. Accessed 22 Nov. 2024.
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meretricious
adjective
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