[f. TINSEL sb.3]
1. trans. To make glittering with gold or silver (or imitations thereof) interwoven, brocaded, or laid on. Also fig. b. To embellish (pictures, letters, etc.) with gold leaf; to embellish (ceramic ware) with metallic effects (Cent. Dict. Suppl., 1909). Hence Tinselling vbl. sb.
1594. Nashe, Unfort. Trav., E iv. Hir daintie lims tinsill hir silke soft sheets, Hir rose-crownd cheekes eclipse my dazeled sight.
1611. Cotgr., Pourfiler dor, to purfle, tinsell, or ouercast with gold thread, &c. Ibid., Pourfileure, purfling; baudkin-worke; tinselling.
17306. Bailey (folio), Tinselling, a border of silver.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, Answ. Corr., xvii. I want to do something in the evening on my own account (tinselling pictures, for instance).
2. To give a speciously attractive or showy appearance to; to cover the defects of with or as with tinsel.
1748. Warburton, Alliance betw. Ch. & St., I. v. (ed. 3), 83. The Gloom of Equivocation, which spreads itself thro the formal Chapters of the one; and the Glare of puerile Declamation, that tinsels over the trite Essays of the other. Ibid. (17[?]), Unpubl. Papers (1841), 449. False honour may thus tinsel over the gaudy slaves of an absolute master.
a. 1774. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), II. 265. The hopes that tinsel the gay and busy hours of life.