tinsel
noun

- thin strips of a shiny material used as decoration, esp. on Christmas trees

- something, especially the entertainment business or someone’s way of living, that seems exciting and attractive, but is really of low quality or value

The Cambridge Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

The word “tinsel” is mid-15th century, from Anglo-French tencele, Old French estencele, estincelle meaning “spark, spangle”.

In the 16th century, “tinsel” described a variety of lightweight fabrics made with silk, gold and silver thread. These tinsel fabrics were used in elite cothes, masque costume, and for heraldric banners and flags. Elizabeth of York bought “tynsell satin” in 1502 and the wardrobe of Margaret Tudor included “tynsen” in 1515.

The figurative sense of “anything showy with little real worth” is from the 1650s.

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SYNONYMS

- a bright, shimmering reflected light

beacon, beam, beam of light, beams, bedazzlement, blaze, blinding light, blink, blinking, brilliance, brilliancy, burning, burnish, candescence, chink, coruscation, dancing of light, dartle, dazzle, dazzling light, effulgence, firelight, flame, flare, flash, flashing, flash of light, flicker, flickering, fluorescence, gilt, gleam, gleaming, glim, glimmer, glimmering, glint, glinting, glisten, glistening, glister, glittering, glitz, gloss, glossiness, glow, glowing, illumination, illumining, incandescence, iridescence, irradiance, irradiation, lucency, luminance, lumination, luminescence, luminosity, luminousness, lustre, lustrousness, moonbeam, moonlight, opalescence, phosphorescence, radiance, radiation, ray of light, scintilla, scintillation, shaft of light, sheen, shimmer, shine, shininess, shining, spangle, spark, sparkle, sparkling, starlight, stream of light, sunbeam, twink, twinkle, TINSEL, twinkling, winking

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