meretricious
Example Sentences
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“Shakespeare in Love” kidnapped its subject to force him into a flimsy and meretricious romcom; “Hamnet” reduces the concept of tragedy to actors being extremely sad.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 27, 2025
Or maybe, seen with a cold eye, meretricious.
From New York Times • Mar. 14, 2024
The economic crash of 1929 descended on America like an ice age, ending a meretricious prosperity.
From Salon • Nov. 4, 2023
Even in his last decades, when he might have basked in the eminence of his international reputation, he was still experimenting, still trying to separate the essential from the meretricious.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 3, 2022
They were exceedingly meretricious in their art; they were the most modern specimens of that style of Japanese handicraft which is produced exclusively for the English market.
From The Little Vanities of Mrs. Whittaker A Novel by Winter, John Strange
Vocabulary lists containing meretricious
The Great Gatsby
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Fake It 'Til You Make It: Synonyms for "False"
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"The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry
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