Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Glittering with gold or tinsel.
- n. Imitation gold leaf; tinsel; glitter.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Yellow copper; Dutch gold; a showy, cheap alloy.
- n. Tinsel; false glitter.
- Decked with garish finery; glittering; flashy. Also clinkant.
Wiktionary
- adj. glittery
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Glittering; dressed in, or overlaid with, tinsel finery.
- n. Tinsel; Dutch gold.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. glittering with gold or silver
Etymologies
- French, glistening, tinkling, present participle of obsolete clinquer, to clink, perhaps from Middle Dutch klinken; see clink1.
Examples
“SNAIL'S TALES: An occasion for a clinquant celebration skip to main”
“Beaming, the lady held out a purse, heavy and all clinquant, as the man says, with gold.”
“Pour ne parler que de celui de mon personnage, le site se veut clinquant, vendeur, imitant”
“I liked Jack, but not clinquant in crimson and gold, with spurs and sword clanking on the hard, frost-bitten road.”
“The clinquant corslet of the Swiss girl just survives at bals costumés.”
“My eyes rejoice in the shine of it; its clinquant sound is music in my ears.”
“One cannot help asking one's self, diffidently indeed, but pertinaciously, are not the ornaments too clinquant, do not the decorations assert themselves too presumptuously and mar the softer and more harmonious colors of the groundwork?”
“[22] I must entirely agree with Monsieur Boileau, that one verse of Vergil is worth all the _clinquant _or tinsel of Tasso.”
“The General and the generals went in and crowded the hall of audience, very clinquant with its black and white floor, glass chandeliers, long mirrors and single gilded center table.”
“Pardon, Monsieur, in every age a love-story keeps its interest; but who cares nowadays for le clinquant du Tasse?”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘clinquant’.
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Silver
Silvery words. (Mithril doesn't count.)
lessilver, silver, ladysilver, loadsilver, silvery, silversmith, silverwork, silverware, ale-silver, quicksilver, aver-silver, besilver and 242 more...
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henryar's list
marmoleum, menagerie, cyan, ochre, pilfer, discombobulate, loquacious, iridescent, amethyst, derelict, botulism, equilibrium and 240 more...
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my fab list
blowsabella, aperçu, froideur, salubrious, abject, gallipot, mumchance, wainscot, virago, macerate, lascivious, clandestine and 181 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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malechi's list
peculiar, obscure, quirky, obsolete
cynosure, roun, clinquant, sprezzatura, cavil, salubrious, incunabulum, susurrus, scuppernong, coryza, arsiversie, gobemouche and 1 more...
jmjarmstrong JM made a clinquant clanger the other day - as meretricious as it was showy. Oct 5, 2010
bilby Excellent story Malechi. Dec 8, 2008
malechi 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. Dec 7, 2008
she (From French clinquant clinking, tinkling, pr. pple. of obs. v. clinquer, adopted from Dutch klinken to clink, ring.) Aug 6, 2008