(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.
Tawdry
Definition:
(superl.) Bought at the festival of St. Audrey.
(superl.) Very fine and showy in colors, without taste or elegance; having an excess of showy ornaments without grace; cheap and gaudy; as, a tawdry dress; tawdry feathers; tawdry colors.
(n.) A necklace of a rural fashion, bought at St. Audrey's fair; hence, a necklace in general.
Example Sentences:
(1) The citizenship debate is tawdry, conflated and ultimately pointless | Richard Ackland Read more On Wednesday, the prime minister criticised lawyers for backing terrorists.
(2) Writing in the Observer under the headline "Michael Gove, using history for politicking is tawdry" , Hunt seethes, "the government is using what should be a moment for national reflection and respectful debate to rewrite the historical record and sow political division."
(3) The BBC presenter confided to the Radio Times that he shares widespread public disdain for the "tawdry pretences" of modern politicians and the "green-bench pantomime" of Westminster politics.
(4) They were already emboldened by the tawdry campaign of fear used to stop Scottish independence.
(5) Rudd's "zero tolerance" for corruption, and his "disgust" for the tawdry shenanigans in NSW, were in the news cycle before the Icac recommendations – a deliberate bit of media management.
(6) Garvey finished with this somewhat tangential attack: "There are a lot of people who feel that Britain is a bit tawdry," going on to list its seamier side – reality telly, 24-hour drinking, a lapdancing club on every street corner, a Radio 5 Live presenter doing Woman's Hour (that last is my input) … "There are many people who have an asbo and the family are rather chuffed," she said.
(7) I wear a hijab and that’s going to be a problem, but once one person is able to do that, it then allows other people to dream too.” Though the never-ending campaign cycle and tawdry political fighting can breed apathy and disinterest in the American political process, Omar’s family fought for political representation, engendering in Omar a deep enthusiasm and optimism about the importance of the vote.
(8) This tawdry friendship of convenience, these pageants, lies and unethical compromises, may benefit Cameron and Xi, but they are an insult to the citizens of Britain, who cherish their hard-fought freedoms, and to those in China , who are still struggling courageously to achieve them.
(9) The prime minister who once promised a new politics is revealed as a shameless practitioner of the tawdry old art of government by patronage.
(10) Yesterday Bin Hammam claimed the allegations were a "tawdry manoeuvre" to discredit him ahead of the election, claiming for the first time the money was for administrative costs and travel expenses.
(11) It has become a symbol of intolerance, it faces a court battle with the federal government, and it has exemplified that most un-southern quality: tawdriness.
(12) Warrant suggests federal police are investigating Mal Brough over diary leak Read more Dreyfus, the shadow attorney general, told parliament the Australian people deserved answers about Brough’s “grubby” role in “one of the most tawdry episodes” of the Tony Abbott era.
(13) That is the tawdry secret that dare not speak its name."
(14) Since his conviction, politicians from all sides of the chamber have been, as the BBC always says, "united in their condemnation" of Walker and his tawdry struggle to hang on to his job and his £58,000 salary when he ought instead to have resigned immediately.
(15) "Press regulation is too important an issue to be answered by some tawdry deal cooked up at two in the morning in Ed Miliband's office," he told BBC Radio 4's PM programme on Tuesday.
(16) Bin Hammam, who previously labelled the investigation into the allegations a "tawdry manoeuvre" aimed at destabilising his election campaign, earlier muttered still more darkly.
(17) This apparently tawdry and peripheral form contains a hallucinatory history of the modern self.
(18) "It's getting a bit desperate isn't it when a club make an announcement that they've not had any interest in their players, trying to give the impression that they disapprove of the entire tawdry business.
(19) This is slightly disingenuous – in January, he and Trudie, his film-producer wife of 18 years and mother to four of his six children, gave a joint interview to Harper's Bazaar in which he claimed: "I don't think pedestrian sex is very interesting… we like tawdry."
(20) And the FA itself might finally recognise its responsibility to football’s fans and lead a boycott of Fifa , withdrawing in all but name from the committees and procedures of the tawdry, discredited outfit that represents the world’s favourite game.