tchotchke

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Contents

English [edit]

Alternative forms [edit]

Etymology [edit]

First attested in American English[1] in 1964[1]: From Yiddish[1] טשאַטשקע (tshatshke, trinket), from obsolete Polish czaczko; consider Russian цацка (cácka)[1].

Pronunciation [edit]

  • (file)

Noun [edit]

tchotchke (plural tchotchkes)

  1. A small, decorative item or souvenir, usually of no particular value.[1]
    • 1998 Apr, Mark Rakatansky, A/Partments, in Assemblage 35, page 58, [1]
      I am a child of modernism – [...] As such I have inherited a distrust of the tchotchke, which I have still – [...]
    • 1999 Aug 8, Jesse McKinley, The Avant-Garde: Follow That Backpack, in The New York Times, page 5.16
      With limited cash and a thirst for uncommon sights, backpackers have pushed into challenging territory well before the big-money resorts or tchotchke merchants.
    • 2006, Jack Sullivan, Hitchcock's Music, Yale University Press, page 244
      Once again Hitchcock overturned the convention that music must remain subliminally in the background of a film: [...] in its quiet moments, it roams grimly wherever it pleases, investing the most banal images—a toy, [...] a tchotchke of folding hands—with dread.
  2. (obsolete) A bimbo.[1]

See also [edit]

References [edit]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 tchotchke” in the Online Etymology Dictionary, © November 2001 Douglas Harper