What is the meaning of meretricious?

Like or relating to a prostitute.
- usage: "meretricious relationships"
Tastelessly showy.
- usage: "a flash car"; "a flashy ring"; "garish colors"; "a gaudy costume"; "loud sport shirts"; "a meretricious yet stylish book"; "tawdry ornaments"
- synonyms: brassy, cheap, flash, flashy, garish, gaudy, gimcrack, loud, tacky, tatty, tawdry, trashy
Based on pretense; deceptively pleasing.
- usage: "the gilded and perfumed but inwardly rotten nobility"; "meretricious praise"; "a meretricious argument"
- synonyms: gilded, specious

|15 years ago|1k views|share |citing

APA	WordNet. (2010). meretricious. Retrieved September 22, 2026, from http://smartdefine.org/meretricious/definitions/1178302
Chicago	WordNet. 2010. "meretricious" http://smartdefine.org/meretricious/definitions/1178302 (accessed September 22, 2026).
Harvard	WordNet 2010, meretricious, Smart Define, viewed 22 September, 2026, <http://smartdefine.org/meretricious/definitions/1178302>.
MLA	WordNet. "meretricious" 23 October 2010. Web. 22 September 2026. <http://smartdefine.org/meretricious/definitions/1178302>

Alternative definitions by