Word.ws English Dictionary

Potemkin

UK/pɒˈtɛm.kɪn/US/poʊˈtɛm.kɪn/

Potemkin proper noun: a transliteration of the Russian surname Потёмкин (Potjómkin).

Proper noun

Potemkin

  1. A transliteration of the Russian surname Потёмкин (Potjómkin).
  2. (attributive, figuratively) Resembling a Potemkin village; fake, facade.
    • These Potemkin demonstrations depict a universe of happy devices, all seamlessly interoperating, tossing media back and forth to one another in a superbly orchestrated fashion.2007 August 14, Cory Doctorow, “Don't fall for the Potemkin scam”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC
    • After more than a year of denial that they even existed, the Chinese Communist Party at last admitted, last fall, that it was holding people in camps in Xinjiang. It describes these as “reeducation” camps focused on potential terrorists or job training and takes carefully selected groups on...2019 October 8, Nur Iman, “I Was a Model Uighur. China Took My Family Anyway.”, in Foreign Policy

Examples of Potemkin in a sentence

  • It describes these as “reeducation” camps focused on potential terrorists or job training and takes carefully selected groups on Potemkin tours to visit them.2019 October 8, Nur Iman, “I Was a Model Uighur. China Took My Family Anyway.”, in Foreign Policy:
  • President Emmanuel Macron vowed an economic revival, but as he seeks re-election, a Potemkin factory in the town where he was raised shows just how hard that can be.2022 April 5, Norimitsu Onishi, “For Macron, France’s Troubled Industries Hit Home”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York...

Words formed from Potemkin

Phrases with Potemkin

Questions about Potemkin

What does Potemkin mean?
Potemkin means a transliteration of the Russian surname Потёмкин (Potjómkin).
How do you use Potemkin in a sentence?
It describes these as “reeducation” camps focused on potential terrorists or job training and takes carefully selected groups on Potemkin tours to visit them.
What part of speech is Potemkin?
Potemkin is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Potemkin?
Potemkin is pronounced /pɒˈtɛm.kɪn/ (UK).

Words near Potemkin in the dictionary

  1. Poteet
  2. Poteete
  3. Poteetes
  4. Poteets
  5. potelot
  6. Potemkin
  7. Potemkin village
  8. Potemkin villages
  9. Potemkinian
  10. Potempa
  11. Potempas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Potemkin (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Potemkin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/potemkin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.