as in cheese
something that is of low quality but that many people find amusing and enjoyable
The restaurant is decorated with 1950s furniture and kitsch from old TV shows.
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as in kitschy
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of kitsch
Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 22 Jan. 2026
Historic Route 66 General Store Seligman is the place to get your Route 66 kitsch on.
—Daria Bachmann, Travel + Leisure, 11 Jan. 2026
The Italian experimental duo creates a sprawling, overstimulating work that celebrates the kitsch lurking behind a wide array of musical forms.
—H.d. Angel, Pitchfork, 7 Jan. 2026
Nostalgic or Retro Motifs At its core, kitsch draws on mid-20th-century vintage and retro aesthetics.
—Cori Sears, Better Homes & Gardens, 6 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for kitsch
Noun
The potential design traps in a place like Hawaii are often hard to avoid–the bright hibiscus prints, the surf photos; decor can approach kitsch in the blink of an eye.
—Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 22 Jan. 2026
Historic Route 66 General Store Seligman is the place to get your Route 66 kitsch on.
—Daria Bachmann, Travel + Leisure, 11 Jan. 2026
The Italian experimental duo creates a sprawling, overstimulating work that celebrates the kitsch lurking behind a wide array of musical forms.
—H.d. Angel, Pitchfork, 7 Jan. 2026
Nostalgic or Retro Motifs At its core, kitsch draws on mid-20th-century vintage and retro aesthetics.
—Cori Sears, Better Homes & Gardens, 6 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for kitsch
Recent Examples of Synonyms for kitsch
Noun
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Italian seasoning, Gruyère cheese, and roasted red peppers make this chicken anything but bland.—
Kimberly Holland,
Southern Living,
23 Feb. 2026
-
At the Port Authority Bus Terminal expansion, half a mile uptown, Staller trained his lens on giant tubes of steel rimmed with teeth—core drill sections, frosted with snow, like colossal ziti topped with mozzarella cheese—which a crane was hoisting into place.—
Nick Paumgarten,
New Yorker,
23 Feb. 2026
Adjective
-
At least Stijn Verhoeven and Ewa Mroczkowska’s nuanced production design for the interiors, including bourgeois homes full of kitschy knick-knacks, anonymous office spaces and frigidly austere villas, tell a story of their own about the material culture of the era.—
Leslie Felperin,
HollywoodReporter,
16 Feb. 2026
-
Remarkably, a house that might have descended into kitschy pastiche never does.—
Mark Lamster
Architecture Critic,
Dallas Morning News,
10 Feb. 2026
Noun
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Furthermore, a study conducted by Emily White in December found that 32% of respondents who were taking part in the iPod’s revival were Gen Z — meaning this isn’t purely a nostalgia play by older millennials digging through junk drawers.—
Ryan Brennan,
Kansas City Star,
23 Feb. 2026
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Her young daughter loves being in the shop too, watching her mom transform cars from junk into treasure.—
Los Angeles Times,
Los Angeles Times,
23 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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This garish cavalcade of perversions, which just premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, should have been shocking and transgressive; the pieces are certainly there.—
Bilge Ebiri,
Vulture,
15 Feb. 2026
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Rules is a weird, frenetic, garish movie that Van Der Beek, who died Wednesday at 48, believed in deeply and hoped would reboot and redefine his career as Dawson’s Creek came to an end.—
Ky Henderson,
Rolling Stone,
15 Feb. 2026
Noun
-
Piles of human scraps offer a bottomless buffet to wildlife, and to access that bounty, animals need to be bold enough to rummage through human rubbish but not so bold as to become a threat to people.—
Marina Wang,
Scientific American,
14 Nov. 2025
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Helga once wrestled down a drunk fisherman in the Café, a man of above-average size, and then threw him out like a piece of rubbish; Jens thus transfers most of his weight automatically to her; who is this kid, by the way?—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
10 Nov. 2025
Adjective
-
Debate is supposed to be a gaudy, brash show, a game of big winners and big losers.—
Talya Zax,
The Atlantic,
21 Feb. 2026
-
The Board of Peace was soft-launched, in January, in Davos, Switzerland, when the organizers of the World Economic Forum yielded their platform to the White House for a gaudy opening ceremony.—
Ishaan Tharoor,
New Yorker,
21 Feb. 2026
Noun
-
Investigators used genealogy sites to build a family tree and pulled trash from the Pennsylvania home of Kohberger’s parents to make a connection.—
Ed White,
Fortune,
20 Feb. 2026
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The cunning canine can be seen carrying a large bag of trash with his teeth and gingerly leaving it on the roadside, according to video released by the Catania municipality Thursday.—
Barbie Latza Nadeau,
CNN Money,
20 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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Jones envisioned the show as more light-hearted than those of her competitors, weaving comedy skits and bawdy humor in with the tawdry affairs of her guests.—
Randall Colburn,
Entertainment Weekly,
29 Jan. 2026
-
Mad Men’s Sally Draper, and Stranger Things’ Charlie Heaton—for a tawdry, deceptive, disastrous hookup.—
Judy Berman,
Time,
19 Jan. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Kitsch.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/kitsch. Accessed 26 Feb. 2026.
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