noun
- Historical a cloth of silk, wool, etc. interwoven with glittering threads of gold, silver, or other metal
- thin sheets, strips, or threads of tin, metal foil, etc., used for inexpensive decoration
- something that glitters like precious metal but has little worth; empty show; sham splendor
Origin:
aphetic < MFr estincelle, a spark, spangle: see stencil
transitive verb tinseled or tinselled, tinseling or tinselling
- to make glitter with or as with tinsel
- to give a false appearance of splendor to