gimmickry

noun

gim·​mick·​ry ˈgi-mi-krē How to pronounce gimmickry (audio)
plural gimmickries
: an array or profusion of gimmicks
also : use of gimmicks

Examples of gimmickry in a Sentence

a lot of marketing gimmickry and hype
Recent Examples on the Web This devoted crowd would likely have preferred to see Madonna drop the gimmickry to perform one of her biggest hits in person. Martha Ross, The Mercury News, 28 Feb. 2024 No tiresome immersive gimmickry but an enhanced consciousness of being in the real thing. Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, 27 Jan. 2024 Ruscha made drawings using gunpowder and paintings of maple syrup and beans, but few image-makers have so rarely lapsed into gimmickry, and even fewer have got such consistent laughs. Jackson Arn, The New Yorker, 2 Oct. 2023 The discipline of judgment and decision-making had made crucial, enduring contributions—the foundation laid by Kahneman and Tversky, for example—but the broader credibility of the behavioral sciences had been compromised by a perpetual-motion machine of one-weird-trick gimmickry. Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker, 30 Sep. 2023 But, of course, modernism itself remained open to charges of gimmickry, and not only from reactionaries. Merve Emre, The New Yorker, 9 Nov. 2020 So yeah, like VanMoof, Cowboy e-bikes are high-tech proprietary computers-on-wheels with a feature set that can, at times, verge on gimmickry. Thomas Ricker, The Verge, 21 July 2023 As good as the S5 is, the feature set is verging on gimmickry, in my opinion, perhaps in an attempt to justify its new higher $3,998 / €3,498 price tag. Thomas Ricker, The Verge, 6 May 2023 During the past six months, thousands of asylum seekers have been sent to New York, most coming from Texas by way of political gimmickry rooted in the goal that Northern liberals might finally understand the challenges of our immigration policy if they were confronted with a surge. Ginia Bellafante, New York Times, 30 Sep. 2022

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'gimmickry.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1948, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of gimmickry was in 1948

Dictionary Entries Near gimmickry

Cite this Entry

“Gimmickry.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gimmickry. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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