Affectation vs Meretricious - What's the difference?
affectation | meretricious |
An attempt to assume or exhibit what is not natural or real; false display; artificial show.
:* {{quote-book, year=1810
, year_published=2009
, edition=Digitized
, editor=
, author=Dr. Samuel Johnson
, title=The Works of the English Poets
, chapter=Life of Gower
An unusual mannerism.
(obsolete) Of, or relating to prostitutes or prostitution.
Tastelessly gaudy; superficially attractive but having in reality no value or substance; falsely alluring.
* , chapter=10
, title= * 2006 , (Clive James), North Face of Soho , Picador 2007, p. 164:
As a noun affectation
is an attempt to assume or exhibit what is not natural or real; false display; artificial show.As an adjective meretricious is
of, or relating to prostitutes or prostitution.affectation
English
Noun
(en noun)citation, genre= , publisher= , isbn= , page= , passage=This poem is strongly tinctured with those pedantic affectations concerning the passion of love ... }}
Synonyms
* (unusual mannerism) eccentricity, mannerismmeretricious
English
Adjective
(en adjective)The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.}}
- When I lifted my eyes from the page, there was none of the meretricious argument London always offers that the sole real purpose in life is to hustle for a buck.
