Potemkin village
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of Potemkin village
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
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It’s possible this has left him thinking the world’s bad guys are a Potemkin village, that they talk big but fold quickly.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 5, 2026
They are the world’s most expensive decorations — a clean-energy Potemkin village stretched across the provinces.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 21, 2026
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.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2025
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.”
From New York Times ● Apr. 20, 2023
The McNamaras were a Potemkin village of family bliss.
From Washington Post ● May 6, 2022
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
