clinquant

comparative more clinquant · superlative most clinquant

1. Glittery; gleaming; sparkling; dressed in, or overlaid with, tinsel finery.

   Today the French, / All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods, / Shone down the English;

   1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], lines 18–20

1. uncountableDutch metal.
2. uncountableTinsel; glitter.

   Lely supplied the want of taste with clinquant; his nymphs trail fringes and embroidery through meadows and purling streams.

   1762, George Vertue, Horace Walpole, Some Anecdotes of Painting in England, volume 2, published 1849, page 442

   1 more example

   Harrison came that day in a scarlett coate and cloake, both laden with gold and silver lace, and the coate so cover'd with clinquant, that scarcely could one discerne the ground,

   1806 [a. 1681], Lucy Hutchinson, Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson, 3rd edition, volume 2, Longman, Hurst, Bees, and Orme, published 1810, page 177