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tinsel

Pronunciation: /ˈtɪns(ə)l/

The English word “tinsel” has 13 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A silk or wool fabric with gold or silver thread woven into it; brocade.
  2. A very thin, gauzelike cloth with gold or silver (or, later, copper) thread woven into it, or overlaid with thin metal plates.
  3. A thin, shiny foil for ornamental purposes which is of a material made of metal or resembling metal; especially, narrow glittering strips of such a material, often strung on to thread, and traditionally at Christmastime draped on Christmas trees, hung from balustrades or ceilings, or wrapped around objects as a decoration.
  4. Anything shining and gaudy; especially something superficially shiny and showy, or having a false lustre, and more pretty than valuable.
  5. Damage, detriment; loss.
  6. Deprivation; forfeiture.

adjective

  1. Of fabric: ornamented by being woven with gold or silver thread, or overlaid with thin metal plates; brocaded.
  2. Glittering.
  3. Apparently beautiful and costly but having little value; superficially attractive; gaudy, showy, tawdry.

verb

  1. To ornament (fabric, etc.) by weaving into it thread of gold, silver, or some other shiny material.
  2. To deck out (a place or something) with showy but cheap ornaments; to make gaudy.
  3. To give (something) a false or superficial attractiveness.
  4. To cause (someone) damage or loss; also, to impose a fine on (someone); to mulct.

Etymology

The noun is derived from Middle English tinsel (“cloth containing gold or silver thread”) [and other forms], probably from Anglo-Norman tincel, tincelle, tencele, and then: * from Old French estincelle, estencele (“a spark”) (modern French étincelle), from Vulgar Latin *stincilla, a metathesis of Latin scintilla (“a glimmer; a spark”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ḱeh₁y- (“to shimmer,…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.