- Today's Word
Meretricious
mer-uh-TRISH-us
Definition
(adjective) Attractive in a showy but deceptive or worthless way.
Example
The ad campaign was full of meretricious claims that didn’t match the product.
Fun Fact
Meretricious comes from the Latin word for prostitute (meretrix) and originally referred to superficial allure with no substance. Today, it’s used in critiques of marketing, fashion, or social media culture, where style often outweighs truth. It’s a biting word for anything that tries too hard to impress without backing it up.
(noun) A person who believes that the pursuit of pleasure and sensory enjoyment is the highest good and chief aim of life
A self-proclaimed hedonist, she planned her entire sabbatical around exceptional food, warm weather, and long afternoons with nothing to do.
Hedonist derives from the Greek hedone, meaning “pleasure” or “delight,” from hedys (“sweet”). The philosophical school of Hedonism was formally developed in ancient Greece — most notably by Epicurus, who argued that pleasure, properly understood, was the foundation of a good life. The word entered English in the 19th century as both a philosophical term and a descriptor for those who live purely for sensory gratification.