different between glamour vs tinsel

English

Etymology

From Scots glamer, from earlier Scots gramarye (“magic, enchantment, spell”).

The Scottish term may either be from Ancient Greek ?????????? (grammárion, “gram”), the weight unit of ingredients used to make magic potions, or an alteration of the English word grammar (“any sort of scholarship, especially occult learning”).

A connection has also been suggested with Old Norse glámr (poet. “moon,” name of a ghost) and glámsýni (“glamour, illusion”, literally “glam-sight”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??læm?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /??læm?/

Noun

glamour (countable and uncountable, plural glamours)

1. (uncountable) Originally, enchantment; magic charm; especially, the effect of a spell that causes one to see objects in a form that differs from reality, typically to make filthy, ugly, or repulsive things seems beauteous.
   • 1882, James Thomson (B. V.), “The City of Dreadful Night”:

     They often murmur to themselves, they speak
     To one another seldom, for their woe
     Broods maddening inwardly and scorns to wreak
     Itself abroad; and if at whiles it grow
     To frenzy which must rave, none heeds the clamour,
     Unless there waits some victim of like glamour,
     To rave in turn, who lends attentive show.

2. (uncountable) Alluring beauty or charm (often with sex appeal).

   glamour magazines; a glamour model

3. (uncountable) Any excitement, appeal, or attractiveness associated with a person, place, or thing; that which makes something appealing.

   The idea of being a movie star has lost its glamour for me.
4. Any artificial interest in, or association with, an object, or person, through which it or they appear delusively magnified or glorified.
5. A kind of haze in the air, causing things to appear different from what they really are.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

6. (countable) An item, motif, person, image that by association improves appearance.

Alternative forms

• glamor (US); however, the -our spelling is the more common spelling, even in the US

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

glamour (third-person singular simple present glamours, present participle glamouring, simple past and past participle glamoured)

1. (transitive) To enchant; to bewitch.

References

• “Glámr” in: Richard Cleasby, Guðbrandur Vigfússon — An Icelandic-English Dictionary (1874)

Danish

Etymology

From English glamour.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?lamu?r/, [??la?mu???] or IPA^(key): /?lam?r/, [???lam?]

Noun

glamour c (singular definite glamouren, not used in plural form)

1. glamour

Derived terms

• glamourisere
• glamourøs

Finnish

Noun

glamour

1. glamour (charm)

Declension

French

Noun

glamour m (uncountable)

1. glamour

Adjective

glamour (invariable)

1. glamorous

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From English glamour

Noun

glamour m (definite singular glamouren)

1. glamour

Related terms

• glamorøs

References

• “glamour” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From English glamour

Noun

glamour m (definite singular glamouren)

1. glamour

Related terms

• glamorøs

References

• “glamour” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Spanish

Etymology

From English glamour.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?la?mu?/, [?la?mu?]

Noun

glamour m (uncountable)

1. Alternative spelling of glamur

Further reading

• “glamour” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.

Swedish

Noun

glamour c (definite singular glamouren) (uncountable)

1. glamour

English

Etymology

From Middle French estincelle (“spark”) (compare French étincelle), from Latin scintilla; compare scintillate, stencil.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /?t?n.s?l/
• Rhymes: -?ns?l

Noun

tinsel (usually uncountable, plural tinsels)

1. A shining material used for ornamental purposes; especially, a very thin, gauzelike cloth with much gold or silver woven into it; also, very thin metal overlaid with a thin coating of gold or silver, brass foil, or the like.
   • 1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe

     Who can discern the tinsel from the gold?
2. Very thin strips of a glittering, metallic material used as a decoration, and traditionally draped at Christmas time over streamers, paper chains and the branches of Christmas trees.
3. Anything shining and gaudy; something superficially shining and showy, or having a false luster, and more pretty than valuable.
   • 1782, William Cowper, Truth

     O happy peasant! O unhappy bard! His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward.

Translations

Adjective

tinsel (not comparable)

1. Glittering, later especially superficially so; gaudy, showy.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.1:

     Her garments all were wrought of beaten gold, / And all her steed with tinsell trappings shone […]

Verb

tinsel (third-person singular simple present tinsels, present participle (UK) tinselling or (US) tinseling, simple past and past participle (UK) tinselled or (US) tinseled)

1. (transitive) To adorn with tinsel; to deck out with cheap but showy ornaments; to make gaudy.

   • She, tinseled o'er in robes of varying hues

2. (figuratively, transitive) To give a false sparkle to (something).

Derived terms

• tinseled, tinselled
• tinselly
• Tinseltown

See also

• trimmings
• trim up

References

• tinsel in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• ELINTs, SILENT, Teslin, enlist, inlets, leints, listen, silent