Potemkin village

Or Po·tem·kin Vil·lage

[poh-tem-kin vil-ij, puh‐]

noun

1. a pretentiously showy or imposing façade intended to mask or divert attention from an embarrassing or shabby fact or condition.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Potemkin village¹

1935–40; after Prince Potëmkin ( def. ), who allegedly had villages of cardboard constructed for Catherine II's visit to the Ukraine and the Crimea in 1787

Example Sentences

“It’s a Potemkin village,” said Simon Haeder, a professor at Ohio State University who studies insurers’ provider networks.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

It was like the climactic scene in “Blazing Saddle,” when incompetent villain Hedley Lamarr tried to invade a small town with the baddest of hombres besides him only to find a Potemkin village.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Mr. McConnell suggested the program was a “profoundly tone-deaf” idea to create amid high inflation and compared the program to a Potemkin village designed to deceive American taxpayers.

Read more on Washington Times

The town has been compared to a Potemkin village, to Brigadoon, to a “feudal Disneyland” and to the town in the movie “The Truman Show.”

Read more on New York Times

"All the lies and propaganda, the talk of 'special operations' and swift victories - all that was just a facade, like a Potemkin village."

Read more on Reuters