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  1. brummagem love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Cheap and showy; meretricious.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Showy but worthless; fictitious; sham. [Slang or colloq.]
  2. n. A piece of brummagem ware; hence, an imitation; sham.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Cheap and showy; meretricious.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Slang Counterfeit; gaudy but worthless; sham.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. cheap and showy
  2. n. a city in central England; 2nd largest English city and an important industrial and transportation center

Etymologies

  1. From Birmingham, England where cheap manufactured goods used to be produced. (Wiktionary)
  2. Alteration of Birmingham , England (from the counterfeit coins made there in the 17th century). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “These picturesque rooms often contained "good finds" of the old Spanish furniture, and brass; but as a rule the dealers had long since bought up all the old things, replacing them by "brummagem," -- modern articles shining with cheap varnish.”

    Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders

  • “In the laboratory there are no fustian ranks, no brummagem aristocracies, wrote Twain, putting it a bit more elegantly.”

    USA Today: How some politicians stumble on science

  • “The brummagem politician ... oh, wait ... that would be redundant, wouldn't it?”

    snow gophers, plus...

  • “They name these brummagem cabarets after Pullman cars.”

    The Beautiful and Damned

  • “It was one of the type known as “tourist” cars, a sort of brummagem

    The Beautiful and Damned

  • “Twenty-seventh Street toward the river, near which he could just see a single patch of vivid green trees that guaranteed the brummagem umbrageousness of Riverside Drive.”

    The Beautiful and Damned

  • “You find yourself scrutinizing famous romances for the sudden slip that bares the brummagem nature of it all.”

    The Way They Are

  • “All of our cities are full of brummagem aristocrats -- aristocrats, at all events, in the view of their neighbours -- whose grandfathers, or even fathers, were day labourers; and working for them, supported by them, heavily patronized by them, are clerks whose grandfathers were lords of the soil.”

    The American Credo A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind

  • “To-day one must put him where he has begun to put himself - not among the literary artists of English, but among the brummagem prophets of England.”

    Prejudices : first series,

  • “The things of capital importance are habitually discussed, not by men soberly trying to get at the truth about them, but by brummagem Great Thinkers trying only to get kudos of them.”

    Prejudices : first series,

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Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘brummagem’.

Comments

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  • jmjarmstrong JM values all brummagems (someone has to!). Jan 9, 2010

  • bilby Are Brummagem and Brummagem twins, like Thompson and Thompson? Jun 14, 2009

  • matthewsouther Brummagem and Brummagem ware are also terms for cheap and shoddy imitations, in particular when referring to mass-produced goods. Jun 14, 2009

  • crunchysaviour "It was way up in Brummagem, so I do hear say, that a boat by the name of the Rosemary lay..."

    Brilliant word. Aug 15, 2008

  • johnmperry Imitative of local dialect for Birmingham Jun 20, 2008

  • johnwarren Classic H.L. Mencken vocab. Dec 30, 2006

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‘brummagem’ has been looked up 2771 times, loved by 7 people, added to 49 lists, commented on 6 times, and has a Scrabble score of 15.