From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishtinseltin‧sel /ˈtɪnsəl/ noun [uncountable] 1 DHDECORATEthin strings of shiny paper used as decorations, especially at Christmas2 UNIMPORTANTsomething that seems attractive but is not valuable or important the tinsel and glamour of Hollywood
Examples from the Corpus
tinsel• Not everything about the job was flash and tinsel.• He draped tinsel round the pink lampshades on the table.• She insists on tacking up a bit of tinsel and so on and I see she's done the same for you.• It glittered eerily for a second and exploded, forming a cloud of tinsel.• His hair was tied back with a piece of tinsel string he had found in the Christmas decorations box.• It was identical to mine but for the obvious giveaway that it had no purple tinsel on the handle.• I had put the purple tinsel on to make my case instantly recognisable.• Get some tinsel and some glitter dust if you can.• What is so sad is that through all the tinsel shines a reality, but we can not seem to grasp it.Origin tinsel (1400-1500) Old French estincelle, estancele, etincelle “spark”; → STENCIL2 