n.
Something that appears elaborate and impressive but in actual fact lacks substance: "the Potemkin village of this country's borrowed prosperity" (Lewis H. Lapham).
[After Grigori Aleksandrovich POTEMKIN, who had elaborate fake villages constructed for Catherine the Great's tours of the Ukraine and the Crimea.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
