1. (a.) Attracting attention in a vulgar manner; gaudy; pertaining to prostitutes\; having to do with harlots; lustful; as, meretricious traffic.

2. (a.) Resembling the arts of a harlot; alluring by false show; gaudily and deceitfully ornamental; tawdry; as, meretricious dress or ornaments.

Gongoresque Johnsonian affected apparent bedizened beggarly beneath contempt big-sounding blatant brazen brazenfaced cheap cheesy chintzy coarse colorable colored colorful common contemptible convoluted crass crude crummy deceptive declamatory delusive delusory despicable earthy elevated euphuistic extravagant fallen flagrant flamboyant flaming flaring flashy flaunting fulsome garish gaudy gilded gimcracky glaring gorgeous grandiloquent grandiose grandisonant gross harlot high-flowing high-flown high-flying high-sounding highfalutin hustling inkhorn insincere labyrinthine lexiphanic lofty loud lurid magniloquent mean miserable misleading obscene obtrusive on the on the town orotund ostensible ostentatious overdone overelaborate overinvolved overwrought paltry pathetic pave pedantic pitiable pitiful plausible pompous poor pretentious prostitute prostituted raw rhetorical ribald rough rubbishy rude sad scarlet screaming scrubby scruffy scummy scurvy scuzzy seeming sensational sensationalistic sententious shabby shameless shoddy showy sonorous sorry specious spectacular spurious stilted streetwalking tall tawdry tinsel tortuous trashy trumpery two-for-a-cent two-for-a-penny twopenny twopenny-halfpenny valueless vile vulgar whorish worthless wretched