Sanctimonious vs Meretricious - What's the difference?
sanctimonious | meretricious |
Making a show of being morally better than others, especially hypocritically pious.
(archaic) Holy, devout.
(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 adjectives the difference between sanctimonious and meretricious
is that sanctimonious is making a show of being morally better than others, especially hypocritically pious while meretricious is (obsolete) of, or relating to prostitutes or prostitution.sanctimonious
English
Adjective
(en adjective)Derived terms
* sanctimoniously * sanctimoniousness * sanctimonymeretricious
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.