shams

She has seen the poverty and insincerity of society; she has quarrelled with what she calls the shams of sacred things, the merely conventional marriage, the God of bigotry and hypocrisy, the government of oppression and fraud; but she ends by recognizing and demanding the marriage of heart, the God of enlightened faith, the government of order and progress.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 49, November, 1861 Various

After the van is clean, the driveway shiny and wet, Daddy gets the tubes that hold the smooth towels he calls shams, pulls out one for him and one for me.

Clean Tawnysha Greene 2011

The boy racers - fondly referred to locally as 'shams' - cruise with their 'shamettes' up and down Main Street.

David McWilliams 2009

He has been used to decent forms long since fallen empty of meaning, to plausible modes, solemnities grown ceremonial, -- what you in your iconoclast humor call shams, all his life long; never heard that there was any harm in them, that there was any getting on without them.

Latter-Day Pamphlets Thomas Carlyle 1838

Both processes were dubbed shams by many international observers because the charter-drafting process was controlled by the military, and the referendum supervised by the army resulted in an absurdly high approval rate exceeding 90 per cent.

The Earth Times Online Newspaper 2008

Recycling "shams" and "fly-by-night" operations place low-income and people of color communities at special risk.

Environmental Justice Leaders Call on Obama Administration to Roll Back Bush-Era Wastes Rule 2009

They contented themselves with impeaching the sincerity of the assurances, calling the concessions "shams," and of this it is enough to say that if

The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 What Americans Say to Europe Various

Over the fat pillows were "shams" embroidered in Turkey red, each with a flowering scroll -- one with "Gute 'Nacht," the other with "Guten Morgen."

The song of the lark 1915

Over the fat pillows were "shams" embroidered in Turkey red, each with a flowering scroll -- one with "Gute 'Nacht," the other with "Guten Morgen."

The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather 1915

Over the fat pillows were "shams" embroidered in Turkey red, each with a flowering scroll -- one with "Gute 'Nacht," the other with "Guten Morgen."

The Song of the Lark Willa Sibert Cather 1910