Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Glittering with gold or tinsel.
  • noun Imitation gold leaf; tinsel; glitter.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Yellow copper; Dutch gold; a showy, cheap alloy.
  • noun Tinsel; false glitter.
  • Decked with garish finery; glittering; flashy. Also clinkant.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Glittering; dressed in, or overlaid with, tinsel finery.
  • noun Tinsel; Dutch gold.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective glittery
  • noun Dutch metal

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective glittering with gold or silver

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, glistening, tinkling, present participle of obsolete clinquer, to clink, perhaps from Middle Dutch klinken; see clink.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word clinquant.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • (From French clinquant clinking, tinkling, pr. pple. of obs. v. clinquer, adopted from Dutch klinken to clink, ring.)

    August 6, 2008

  • Glittering, but usually in a false or cheap way, like tinsel

    "No, there are too many of these fine sparks you talk of who perhaps may be very clinquant, slight, and bright and make a very pretty show at first, but the tinsel-gentlemen do so tarnish in the wearing, there's no enduring them."

    --Thomas Shadwell, The Virtuoso

    I once had a cat that liked to eat the tinsel (of the "icicle" type) off the Christmas tree. Maybe he had an iron deficiency. Anyway, he always threw it up later, in a sort of shiny hairball, which was both pretty from a distance and disgusting close up -- like many things, I guess.

    December 8, 2008

  • Excellent story Malechi.

    December 8, 2008

  • JM made a clinquant clanger the other day - as meretricious as it was showy.

    October 5, 2010

  • Bling and "blingant."

    December 24, 2012

  • Ludmila’s taste lapses are frequent,

    Her judgment amiss or delinquent.

    For drama’s effect

    She’s tinsel bedecked

    And enters all slinkily clinquant.

    March 13, 2018