Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Showy unsubstantiality. Also spelled jimcrackery.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Ornamental objects of no great value.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun tastelessness

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun ornamental objects of no great value

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Hell, Al Gore had won just two years earlier for his global warming gimcrackery, but even Gore was not the most fraudulent of winners.

    Deconstructing Obama Jack Cashill 2011

  • Hell, Al Gore had won just two years earlier for his global warming gimcrackery, but even Gore was not the most fraudulent of winners.

    Deconstructing Obama Jack Cashill 2011

  • They're laboring to depict one man's ultimate nightmare through special effects bells and whistles, through laytex, CGI and all manner of postproduction gimcrackery when this character has already survived his ultimate nightmare - watching his young daughter die slowly of an inoperable disease.

    Stay scared Arbogast 2009

  • If you're interested in anything deeper than cable gimcrackery, I recommend giving it a read.

    David Roberts: Cleaning Some of the Fox Off of Van Jones 2009

  • In the old days, even short story writing was lucrative enough to merit gimcrackery classified ads.

    February 2008 2008

  • In the old days, even short story writing was lucrative enough to merit gimcrackery classified ads.

    Friday Hangovers 2008

  • But gutborne reactons like that go a long way to suggesting why there'll always be Big Business in base, "ghost train gimcrackery" what a line! at the expense of genuine soul-rending horror, no matter how much we who yearn for something deeper lament it.

    April come she will Arbogast 2008

  • In the old days, even short story writing was lucrative enough to merit gimcrackery classified ads.

    Friday Hangovers 2008

  • To try to reduce the entire idiom to ghost train gimcrackery would be to limit the possibilities and not expand them.

    April come she will Arbogast 2008

  • There's merit to both viewpoints but DotD08 squanders these possibilities in favor of shakycam braggadocio and ghoulish gimcrackery that played a lot better in PLANET TERROR 2007, which wasn't even that good either.

    Stick a fork in it Arbogast 2008

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