| 释义 |
meretricious, a.|mɛrɪˈtrɪʃəs|
[f. L. meretrīci-us (f. meretrīc-, meretrix harlot, fem. agent-n. f. merērī to earn money, serve for hire: see merit n.) + -ous.]
1. Of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or befitting a harlot; having the character of a harlot.
a1626Bacon New Atl. 27 The Delight in Meretricious Embracements (wher sinne is turned into Art) maketh Marriage a dull thing. 1664H. More Exp. 7 Epist. (1669) 101 Jezebel,..for all her paintings and fine meretricious pranking her self up,..was to be thrown out at the window. 1765Blackstone Comm. I. 436 It is a meretricious, and not a matrimonial, union. 1809Malkin Gil Blas vii. vii, A young stagefinch who had evidently suffered himself to be caught in the birdlime of her professional or meretricious talents. 1814Shelley Prose Wks. (1888) II. 394 The lying and meretricious prude.
2. Alluring by false show of beauty or richness; showily attractive. Now often applied to the style of a painter or a writer.
1633P. Fletcher Purple Isl. viii. ix, Strip thou their meretricious seemlinesse. 1662S. P. Acc. Latitude-men in Phenix II. 503 The meretricious Gaudiness of the Church of Rome, and the squallid Sluttery of Fanatick Conventicles. 1709–10Addison Tatler No. 120 ⁋5 The Front of it was raised on Corinthian Pillars, with all the meretricious Ornaments that accompany that Order. 1790Burke Fr. Rev. 59 A lust of meretricious glory. 1843Prescott Mexico i. vi. (1864) 55 The meretricious ornaments..with which the minstrelsy of the East is usually attended. 1846Wright Ess. Mid. Ages I. v. 185 The style he aims at is gaudy and meretricious. 1879Seguin Black For. vi. 85 The meretricious excitement of the gambling-room.
absol.1838Lytton Alice 55 No critic ever more readily detected the meretricious and the false.
Hence mereˈtriciously adv., mereˈtriciousness.
1727Bailey vol. II, Meretriciousness. 179.Burke Tracts on Popery Laws Wks. 1812 V. 258 And meretriciously to hunt abroad after foreign affections. 1850L. Hunt Autobiog. xxi. (1860) 343 The face [of the Venus de Medici] has the very worst look of meretriciousness, which is want of feeling. 1859Gullick & Timbs Paint. 118 Its generally dauby meretriciousness. 1892T. R. Lounsbury Stud. Chaucer III. vii. 181 The outspokenness of the original has been generally..omitted. For it, however, there has been substituted a veiled coarseness and meretriciousness. |