[f. TINSEL sb.3]

1

  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.

2

1594.  Nashe, Unfort. Trav., E iv. Hir daintie lims tinsill hir silke soft sheets, Hir rose-crownd cheekes eclipse my dazeled sight.

3

1611.  Cotgr., Pourfiler d’or, to purfle, tinsell, or ouercast with gold thread, &c. Ibid., Pourfileure,… purfling;… baudkin-worke; tinselling.

4

1730–6.  Bailey (folio), Tinselling, a border of silver.

5

1851.  Mayhew, Lond. Labour, Answ. Corr., xvii. I want to do something in the evening on my own account (tinselling pictures, for instance).

6

  2.  To give a speciously attractive or showy appearance to; to cover the defects of with or as with tinsel.

7

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.

8

a. 1774.  Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), II. 265. The hopes that tinsel the gay and busy hours of life.

9