What's the difference between meretricious and tacky?

Meretricious


Definition:

  • (a.) Of or pertaining to prostitutes; having to do with harlots; lustful; as, meretricious traffic.
  • (a.) Resembling the arts of a harlot; alluring by false show; gaudily and deceitfully ornamental; tawdry; as, meretricious dress or ornaments.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It was the hangover of a meretricious general election.
  • (2) Hugh Trevor-Roper denounced it as this "meretricious, misleading work".
  • (3) To pretend otherwise is self-indulgent and meretricious.
  • (4) The campaign against next week's election of police commissioners is meretricious.
  • (5) "There is now a disproportionate amount of meretricious material aimed at appealing to public prurience, most of which revolves around the philandering of celebrities," he argues.
  • (6) Of course, even thinking in these crude competitive "scoresheet" terms is a very un-Serious thing to be doing, and the admirers of 12 Years a Slave may have a sinking feeling that it will not be properly rewarded in the tinselly, meretricious, un-Serious Oscar world.
  • (7) There is now a disproportionate amount of meretricious material aimed at appealing to public prurience, most of which revolves around the philandering of celebrities.
  • (8) Almost like the protagonist of a Victorian novel, Sharif was overtaken by his own success, to the extent that in order to service the debts incurred by gambling and a playboy lifestyle, he was thrown back on accepting any work that came his way, and entered a downward spiral into trivial and meretricious movies.
  • (9) Churchill's grandson, the Conservative MP Winston Churchill , wrote to Armstong worried that "my grandfather's wartime diary appears to have fallen into the hands of this meretricious historian, David Irving."
  • (10) Novels that sparkled in the summer sun will seem flashy and meretricious in the sober light of autumn.

Tacky


Definition:

  • (a.) Sticky; adhesive; raw; -- said of paint, varnish, etc., when not well dried.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But to be described as "tacky" is another thing entirely.
  • (2) The samples were periodically withdrawn for examination of yellowing and tackiness.
  • (3) He says they talk about "the love, life and losses of [Real Housewives Of Atlanta star] NeNe Leakes," and that they're "designing the merchandise for the next season of [equally tacky reality show] Bad Girls Club: Evian bottles replaced with leopard print covers to conceal the brand on TV.
  • (4) It ultimately led to his re-capture on Friday in a tacky hotel in Los Mochis, a town of tomato growers on the Pacific Coast.
  • (5) The five-year-old isn’t troubled that it might make her look tacky.
  • (6) Practical application is hampered by inherent characteristics of elastomers, i.e., high tackiness and highly hydrophobic surface properties.
  • (7) Most of the outfits he describes as "tacky" and features in his video look to me like those ones praised by fashion magazines.
  • (8) He's right, these aren't just modern irritants, they're downright tacky.
  • (9) 22 min "All this possession and ticky-tacky passing," says Sean Boiling.
  • (10) We might have thought that that was going to be the nadir of this teeth-grindingly tacky week, but then West Australian talk radio host and alleged adult Howard Sattler demonstrated that our concepts of “bottom of the barrel” were wildly optimistic.
  • (11) Abbott, the Liberal leader, said the menu was "tacky and scatological" but confirmed that Brough's candidacy was safe.
  • (12) Cameron Joseph (@cam_joseph) Donald Trump on Iraq's oil reserve: "I say we should take it and pay ourselves back" #CPAC March 15, 2013 12.52pm GMT "That's the problem with the country," Trump says after detailing how the White House wouldn't let him build one of his tacky black-and-gold-paneled ballrooms on their back lawn.
  • (13) Lidl will forever be associated for me with that illicit drink in its tacky rouge bottle.
  • (14) But what I especially enjoy about Weird Al's song is the way he deems tacky certain aspects of modern life that are now so common they can pass almost unseen: people Instagramming every meal (an "unfollow" offence if ever there was one); people who keep old liquor bottles in a pointless attempt to create a kind of speakeasy vibe; live-tweeting private occasions, and so on.
  • (15) They’ve taken something fine and beautiful and replaced it with something tacky and characterless and guess what?
  • (16) A woman who wears Versace fancies herself quite the molto molto sexy mama, with a dash of 80s tackiness thrown in.
  • (17) I had been trapped in the politically correct negative view of the relay, the view that the cult of the torch was an invented tradition foisted on the Olympics by the Nazis in 1936 and that the 2012 relay was a tacky stunt for drumming up phoney enthusiasm for the London Games from an otherwise indifferent public.
  • (18) As Shona says, certain styles and habits are described as "tacky" by Yankovic in this song, and I don't think many will disagree: Ed Hardy shirts, glitter Uggs, pink sequin Crocs.
  • (19) And you will not find Richard Branson pushing a trolley down the aisle for some tacky publicity stunt.
  • (20) Spinability, pourability, adhesiveness and tackiness are starting to be recognised as physical properties of RTS and its is likely that they may be relevant in the pathogenesis of airways obstruction.