Word Confusion: Meritorious versus Meretricious

• [Law, chiefly North American] Of an action or claim likely to succeed on the merits of the case

• Tawdry
• Flashy
• Vulgar

[Archaic] Relating to or characteristic of a prostitute

Based on pretense, deception, or insincerity

It has also been helping many meritorious students, every year, to pursue their education by providing them scholarships.

That victory, gained in a photo-finish from Kier Park, was all the more meritorious in that it was achieved over the minimum distance of five furlongs.

At the same time, those who render meritorious service should be given due recognition with fitting rewards.

The costs involved in civil litigation may prevent a meritorious appeal.

In a general sense, insurers and insureds have a common interest in ensuring that only meritorious claims are paid.

The one petition rule cuts off meritless and meritorious claims alike, based merely on the sequence of filings.

And not every meritorious claim will be sufficiently lucrative to attract a lawyer willing to work on a contingent fee basis.

Now some meretricious construct called Big Brother — without value, meaning or even entertainment-value — seems to captivate the luckless viewer.

“A mendacious, monkey-brained leader with a meretricious, money-grabbing wife,” he says, “just to give you a little more context.”

We are so accustomed to meretricious cultural studies that when the real thing comes along, generous and suggestive, we may fail to see how many windows and veins it opens.

There’s something cheap about this sort of fake wisdom, something tawdry, meretricious, something… What’s the word I’m looking for?

Such relationships are meretricious.

I respect and applaud your indifference to fine poetry when you can contemplate the meretricious charms of this young person.

It was not elicited by meretricious arts and calculated maneuvers.