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If you call something meretricious, you are saying it has put on a pretty face, but the pretty face is cheap or false — there is little real worth, or little truth, behind the shine. A meretricious argument sounds clever until you look hard, and then it falls apart. A meretricious display is all lights and no substance. It is a formal, rather sharp word; you meet it in careful writing, not in chat. Though actually the Latin underneath is even sharper: it comes from a word for a woman who earned money by selling sex, so the first sense was “ in that catching-the-eye way”. English kept the idea of false glitter and left the old bedroom meaning behind in ordinary use. Do not let the spelling trick you: it sits next to merit on the page, but it does not mean “good”.
華而不實的、虛有其表的
組成From Latin meretrīcius, from meretrīx (a woman who earned a living as a prostitute), from mereō (“to earn, deserve”) — the same root as English merit — plus the female-agent ending -trīx.
同家族的字
- meritfrom the same Latin mereō, “to earn”
- meritoriousalso from mereō; but that word means truly deserving praise, not fake shine
- meretriciousnessthe noun: the quality of being meretricious
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
meretriciousadj/ˌmɛɹɪˈtɹɪʃəs/
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Tastelessly gaudy; superficially attractive but having in reality no value or substance; falsely alluring.
- I discovered even, by his conversation, when intoxicated that his favourites were wantons of the lowest class, who could by their vulgar, indecent mirth, which he called nature, rouse his sluggish spirits. Meretricious ornaments and manners were necessary to attract his attention.
- It might be reasonably objected elsewhere, that some of the tombs are meretricious and too fanciful; but the general brightness seems to justify it here; and Mount Vesuvius, separated from them by a lovely slope of ground, exalts and saddens the scene.
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lawInvolving unlawful sexual connection or lack of consent by at least one party (said of a romantic relationship).
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obsoleteOf, or relating to prostitutes or prostitution.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。