bauble

English

Etymology

From Middle English bable, babel, babull, babulle, from Old French babel, baubel (“trinket, child's toy”), most likely a reduplication of bel, ultimately from Latin bellus (“pretty”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): [ˈbɔːbəɫ]
• (Scots) IPA^(key): [ˈbɒbəɫ]
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈbɔbəl/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /ˈbɑbəl/
• (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔːbəl
• Homophone: bobble (in accents with the cot-caught merger)

Noun

bauble (plural baubles)

1. A cheap showy ornament or piece of jewellery; a gewgaw.
   • 1818, [Mary Shelley], chapter 8, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, →OCLC:

     […] as to the bauble on which the chief proof rests, if she had earnestly desired it, I should have willingly given it to her, so much do I esteem and value her.

   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 6, in The History of Pendennis. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

     Have none before or after him staked all their treasure of life, as a savage does his land and possessions against a draught of the fair-skins’ fire-water, or a couple of bauble eyes?

   • 1977, Jimmy Webb (lyrics and music), “Highwayman”:

     Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade.

2. (figurative, by extension) Anything trivial and worthless.
   • 1841, The New Monthly Magazine and Humorist, page 186:

     His hind quarters were likewise short, and not racinglike, and taken as a specimen of the horse, he was a mere bauble when looked at by the side of an English race-horse, much less a hunter.

3. A small shiny spherical decoration, commonly put on Christmas trees.
4. A club or sceptre carried by a jester.

Synonyms

• (showy ornament): See also: Thesaurus:trinket

Translations

cheap showy ornament piece of jewellery

• Bulgarian: дрънкулка (bg) (drǎnkulka)
• Dutch: prulletje (nl)snuisterij (nl)
• Finnish: rihkamakoru, hely (fi)
• French: babiole (fr) f
• German: Modeschmuck (de) m, Schnickschnack (de) m
• Greek: μπιχλιμπίδι (el) n (bichlimpídi)

  Ancient: λῆρος m (lêros)

• Italian: chincaglieria (it) f, cianfrusaglia (it) f
• Norwegian: juggel
• Russian: безделу́шка (ru) f (bezdelúška), побряку́шка (ru) f (pobrjakúška)
• Serbo-Croatian: drangulija (sh), đinđuva (sh)

small shiny spherical decoration, commonly put on Christmas trees

• Bulgarian: топка (bg) (topka)
• Dutch: kerstbal (nl) m
• Esperanto: kristnaska globo
• Finnish: joulupallo
• French: boule de Noël (fr) f
• German: Christbaumkugel (de) f
• Hungarian: gömbdísz
• Polish: bombka (pl) f, bańka (pl) f
• Portuguese: bola de natal f
• Russian: ёлочный шар m (jóločnyj šar)
• Spanish: bola de navidad f
• Swedish: julgranskula c

club or sceptre carried by a jester

• Danish: narrebriks c
• Finnish: narrinsauva
• Russian: шутовской жезл m (šutovskoj žezl)

Further reading

• bauble on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Bauble in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Anagrams

• bubale