tinsel [LME] Sparkly tinsel comes from Latin scintilla ‘a spark’, which is also the source of scintillate [E17th]. In medieval times tinsel was fabric woven with metallic thread or spangles—it became something like our familiar shiny strips in the late 16th century. The idea of glitter was picked up during the 1970s in Tinseltown, a nickname for Hollywood and its cinema.