Tinsel

Definition: Tinsel

Tinsel

Adjective

1. Gaudy and showy but valueless; "trumpery ornaments".

Noun

1. A showy decoration that is basically valueless; "all the tinsel of self-promotion".

2. A thread with glittering metal foil attached.

Verb

1. Impart a cheap brightness to; "his tinseled image of Hollywood".

2. Adorn with tinsel; "snow flakes tinseled the trees".

3. Interweave with tinsel; "tinseled velvet".

Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
 

Date "tinsel" was first used: sometime around 1448. (references)

Industry

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Synonym: Tinsel

Deception

Whited sepulcher, painted sepulcher; tinsel; paste, junk jewelry, costume jewelry, false jewelry, synthetic jewels; scagliola, ormolu, German silver, albata, paktong, white metal, Britannia metal, paint; veneer; jerry building; man of straw.

Untrue; mock, sham, make-believe, counterfeit, snide, pseudo, spurious, so-called, pretended, feigned, trumped up, bogus, scamped, fraudulent, tricky, factitious;bastard; surreptitious, illegitimate, contraband, adulterated, sophisticated; unsound, rotten at the core; colorable; disguised; meretricious, tinsel, pinchbeck, plated; catchpenny; Brummagem.

Ornament

Finery, frippery, gewgaw, gimcrack, tinsel, spangle, clinquant, pinchbeck, paste; excess of ornament; (vulgarity); gaud, pride.

Vulgarity

Gaudiness, tawdriness; false ornament; finery, frippery, trickery, tinsel, gewgaw, clinquant; baroque, rococo.

Crosswords: Tinsel

Turkish (bodiless).

Tinsel still clinging to it. Like a sex crime victim (Fight Club; writing credit: Jim Uhls)

I find tinsel distracting (Seinfeld; writing credit: Andreas Lenze; Bea Schmidt)

Tiny Timmy trims the tall tree with tinsel. (references; author: unknown)

Tinsel (1918)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Books

• Beneath the Hollywood Tinsel : The Human Side of Hollywood Stars (reference)

• Hollywood Fantasies: 10 Surreal Visions of Tinsel Town (reference)

• Realism and Tinsel (reference)

• Screening Sickness and Other Tales of Tinsel Town (reference)

• Tinsel : a novel (reference)

  (more book examples)

Theater & Movies

• Bubblegum Crisis, Episode 1: Tinsel City (reference)

• Sawdust and Tinsel (reference)

  (more DVD examples; more video examples)

Music

• Tapers and Tinsel - Holiday Music by Wind Chimes (reference)

• Tinsel (reference)

• Tinsel Tunes (reference)

  (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Expressions using "tinsel": tinsel wire ♦ tinsel yarn. Additional references.

Beginning with "tinsel": tinsel-hung.

Albanian

xhingël (catchpenny, curio, gewgaw, gimcrack, knick knack, Nick nack, Spangle, trinket), shirita varaku. (various references)

Arabic 

‏مبهرج (chichi, flashy, florid, garish, gaudy, showy, tawdry), ‏حلية مبهرجة (tawdry), ‏خيوط فضية لامعة, ‏شىء مبهرج ولكنه تافه, ‏بهرج (ornateness). (various references)

Bulgarian 

сърма (goldthread), фалшив (bastard, bogus, brummagem, counterfeit, dummy, factitious, fake, false, fictitious, hollow, imitative, insincere, mock, phoney, phony, pinchbeck, queer, sharp, snide, spurious, supposititious), крещящ (blatant, clamant, dashing, flamboyant, flaring, flashy, garish, glaring, howling, jazz, loud, meretricious, noisy, obvious, screaming, screamy, showy, sporty, trumpery, vociferous, zizzi), евтин (brummagem, cheap, cheesy, dime, gaudy, halfpenny, hand-me-down, inexpensive, jitney, light, meretricious, sleazy, tawdry, trumpery, two bit, twopence colored, twopence coloured, twopenny, twopenny-halfpenny, uncostly), лъжлив блясък, лъжлив (bogus, deceitful, deceptive, delusive, delusory, double, double-tongued, elusory, false, lying, mendacious, misleading, mock, perjurious, phantasmagoric, pretended, quack, shifty, spoof, truthless, untrue, untruthful, vain), безвкусен (conspicuous, flavorless, flavourless, gaudy, gingerbread, insipid, meretricious, savorless, savourless, tasteless, tawdry, twopence colored, twopence coloured, unpalatable, unsavory, unsavoury, vapid, watery, wishy washy), придавам лъжлив блясък на. (various references)

Chinese 

闪亮金属片, 箔 (bamboo screen, door screen, leaf, metal foil, sheet). (various references)

Czech

vyzdobit cetkami, pozlátkový, pozlátko (façade, gilt, gloss, gold leaf, varnish, veneer), cetka (bauble, Spangle, trinket). (various references)

Danish

tinsel (lamé), lamé (lamé), lahn. (various references)

Dutch

glinsterpapier. (various references)

Farsi 

پولک زدن , پولک (Sequin, Shale), نقده , زرق وبرق دار (Flamboyant, Gaudy, Gorgeous, Loud, Showy, Tawdry). (various references)

Finnish

metallikuiduilla koristeltu kangas (lamé), lameekangas (lamé). (various references)

French

orner de guirlandes, lame de clinquant, lamé, guirlandes, décorer de guirlandes, clinquant. (various references)

German

metalldurchwirkte Stoffe (lamé), Lametta (gongs, lametta), Lamé (lamé), Klapperklinge, flittern (glitter, honeymoon, sparkle). (various references)

Greek 

κοσμώ με ευθηνά μέσα, πετάλι (pedal), πούλιεσ, φθηνόσ και επιδεικτικόσ, λαμέ (lamé), ταινιαγωγός. (various references)

Hebrew 

קשוט צעקני, חוטי כסף נוצצים. (various references)

Hungarian

aranyfüst (dutch gold, Dutch metal, gilt), flitter (paillette, sequin, Spangle), csillogó látszat, értéktelen dísz. (various references)

Italian

striscia di orpello, lamé (lamé), decorazioni natalizie. (various references)

Manx

tinsyl, foalsey (affected, bogus, counterfeit, dud, dummy, ersatz, fallacious, false, feigned, forged, hollow, hollow of victory, hypocritical, perfidious, pinchbeck, sham, spurious, substitute, suppositious, treacherous, two-faced, wrong, wrong as note), cur tinsyl er. (various references)

Pig Latin

inseltay.(various references)

Portuguese

ouropel (ormolu, pinchbeck, trumpery), lentejoula (spangle), lamé (lamé), lâminas cintilantes, fio prateado, falso esplendor, brocatel, brilho superficial. (various references)

Romanian

superficial (cursory, external, facile, flimsy, flippant, gossamer, passing, perfunctory, shallow, skin deep, slight, sublime, superficial, superficially, thin, trivial, yeasty), poleialã (foil, gilding, varnish, veneer), paiete de aur sau de argint, nimicuri (candle-end, paraphernalia, rubble, tripe, truck), fluturaş (Spangle), fals (apparent, artificial, bad, base, bogus, cant, colourable, counterfeit, deceitful, double dealing, dud, dummy, erroneous, erroneously, error, factitious, fake, false, falsehood, feigned, flash, forged, forgery, fraud, glossy, hollow, hollow-hearted, imitation, imposture, insincere, lying, mendacious, mistaken, mock, painted, phony, plugged, reprobate, sham, spurious, sugary, treacherous, trumpery, truthless, two faced, unnatural, unnaturally, untrue, wrong, wrongfully), brocart (brocade), betealã, bãtãtor la ochi (banner, flash, flashy, flaunty, garish, glaring, rampageous, self evident, staring), împodobi o rochie cu paiete, ţipãtor (blatant, crude, crying, flash, flashy, flaunty, garish, gaudy, glaring, gross, harsh, hot, jazzily, loud, noisy, painty, peeper, screaming, showy, shrill, staring, strident, tawdry, violent). (various references)

Russian 

мишура (frippery, gewgaw, gimcrack, knick-knackery, ostentation, trumpery). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian

šljokica (paillette, sequin, spangle). (various references)

Spanish

oropel (glamor, glamour, trumpery), lamé (lamé), lama de oro, lama (lama, mud, ooze, slat, tissue), hojuela tintineadora, hojuela metálica brillante, de relumbrón (flashy, trumpery), de oropel (meretricious). (various references)

Swedish

glitter (gewgaws, glint, glitter, ice, knick-knackery, lustre, show, spangle, sparkler). (various references)

Turkish

simlerle süslemek, sim, pul (flake, lamella, lamina, rove, scale, scutcheon, sequin, Spangle, squama, stamp, trichome, washer), gelin teli ile süslemek, gelin teli, gösterişli ama değersiz (brummagem), cicili bicili şey, cicili bicili, asılsız (baseless, captious, chimerical, delusive, footless, groundless, ill founded, insubstantial, out of whole cloth, rootless, unfounded, ungrounded, untruthful, without any foundation, without foundation), allı pullu. (various references)

Ukrainian

мішурний (gewgaw, gimcrack, trumpery), мішура (frippery, gaud, gewgaw, trumpery), блискітки, парча (brocade, gold cloth). (various references)

Vietnamese 

vẻ hào nhoáng, kim tuyến vật hào nhoáng rẻ tiền, bằng kim tuyến hào nhoáng rẻ tiền, đồ mã (trumpery). (various references)

estincelle. (various references)

Derivations

Words beginning with "tinsel": tinseled, tinseling, tinselled, tinselling, tinselly, tinsels. (additional references)

Misspellings

"Tinsel" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Ijssel, Linsdell, Tanyel, tausel, tenel, tenels, tensel, tensil, tince, tinctly, tinel, tingel, tinse, tinsex, tinsle, tinze, tonsel, tusel, tynesid, Tysul. (additional references)

Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

Direct Anagrams: elints, enlist, inlets, listen, silent.

-1 letter: elint, inlet, inset, islet, istle, lenis, liens, lines, lints, neist, nites, senti, stein, stile, tiles, tines.

-2 letters: isle, leis, lens, lent, lest, lets, lien, lies, line, lins, lint, list, lite, lits, nest, nets, nils, nite, nits, sent, silt, sine, site, slit, snit, tels, tens, ties, tile, tils, tine, tins.

-3 letters: els, ens, ins.

+1 letter: clients, dentils, elastin, enlists, entails, entoils, glisten, lectins, lentils, lentisk, liniest, linnets, lintels, linters, lisente, listens, luniest, luteins, nailset, pintles, plenist, salient, saltine, setline, silents, singlet, slainte, stencil, tenails, tensile, tingles, tinkles, tinsels, utensil, wintles.

+2 letters: ailments, alienist, aliments, alunites, beltings, blindest, blintzes, bustline, centiles, cutlines, diluents, elastins, elations, elutions, enlisted, enlistee, enlister, entitles, entrails, ethinyls, feltings, gelatins, genitals, gentiles, gillnets, glistens, holstein, hotlines, inflates, inflects, insolate, insolent, instable, insulate, insulted, insulter, intitles, kinglets, lankiest, latrines, lections, lenities, lentisks, lightens, lignites, linecuts, lingiest, lintiest, lintless, listened, listener, litanies, looniest, lutenist, manliest, melanist, minstrel, nailsets, neoliths, nestlike, nestling, niellist, nimblest, nitriles, novelist, oilstone, outlines, panelist, pantiles, penlites, pestling, plainest, plenists, plenties, potlines, ratlines, reenlist, retinals, retinols, ringlets, salients, saltines, selenite, senility, sentinel, setlines, settling, silenter, silently, singlets, sleeting, smaltine, smelting, splinted, splinter, stealing, steeling, stencils, sterling, stilbene, stillmen, telsonic, tendrils, tensible, tensibly, theelins, tinglers, tinklers, tinseled, tinselly, tintless, toenails, toplines, towlines, trenails, trindles, tunicles, twinkles, unlisted, unsilent, utensils, veinlets, ventails, weltings, winglets.