meretricious
adjective; formal, disapproving

- Seemingly attractive but actually of little or no value

- Tastelessly showy and falsely appealing

- Superficially plausible, insincere or based on pretence

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Collins English Dictionary


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WORD ORIGIN

Meretricious entered English in the early 17th century from Latin meretricius. The Latin adjective meant “relating to a prostitute” and came from meretrix, a woman who sold sexual services.


Behind meretrix lies the verb merēre, meaning “to earn” or “to receive payment”. That same verb gave English the far more respectable words merit, meritorious and emeritus. Linguistic families, like human ones, can contain some surprising relations


The earliest English sense referred directly to prostitution. The word soon acquired a figurative meaning: alluring in appearance but lacking genuine worth or integrity. That is now its usual sense. It can describe gaudy decoration, empty praise, specious reasoning or anything whose polished surface promises considerably more than the substance delivers.

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THE BEAUTIFUL SHORT CUT



A visitor can form an opinion of a website before reading a single sentence. In a 2006 study led by psychologist Gitte Lindgaard, people judged the visual appeal of web pages after seeing them for only 50 milliseconds—one twentieth of a second. Their ratings were remarkably consistent when the pages appeared again for longer.


This snap response belongs to a broader phenomenon known as the aesthetic-usability effect. We tend to assume that an attractive object will also work better. A handsome coffee machine feels easier to operate; an elegant app seems more reliable; a beautifully formatted report can make an ordinary argument appear unusually convincing.


Part of the explanation may be “processing fluency”. Psychologists use this term for the ease with which the mind handles information. Clear contrast, symmetry, familiarity and orderly design require less mental effort. That ease feels pleasant—and we may mistakenly treat the pleasant feeling as evidence that the object itself is good or true.


Good design can genuinely clarify, guide and delight, ...but a gleaming surface with nothing dependable underneath is where attractive becomes meretricious.


Helga & Paul Smith


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SYNONYMS


flashy, gaudy, garish, insincere, MERETRICIOUS, showy, specious, superficial, tawdry

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“Presentations can look impressive, but MERETRICIOUS graphics can hide lack of substance.”

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