glitz: [20] Glitz, a sort of ‘shallow but exciting and fashionable sparkle and showiness’, is a backformation from glitzy, an American slang term fashionable in the early 1980s. This in turn was derived from Yiddish glitz ‘glitter’, which came from German glitzern ‘sparkle’ (a relative of English glitter). Its fortuitous resemblance to a blend of glamour and Ritz contributes to its expressiveness. => glitter
