frippery

English

Etymology

From French friperie, from Old French fripier (“to rub up and down, to wear into rags”). Compare fripper.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɹɪpəɹi/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

frippery (countable and uncountable, plural fripperies)

1. Ostentation, as in fancy clothing.
   • 1871, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter I, in Middlemarch […], volume I, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book I:

     Young women of such birth, living in a quiet country-house, and attending a village church hardly larger than a parlor, naturally regarded frippery as the ambition of a huckster’s daughter.

   • 1999 July 21, Jonathan Jones, “Grey and grimy alternative to frippery that bespeaks loyalty to welfare state Britain”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     Well, we were probably never going to mistake Gordon Brown for a rococo dandy. Out go Thomas Gainsborough and George Romney with all their 18th century frills and fripperies, like aristocrats deported on the tumbril.

   • 2001 September 18, Audrey Gillan, “London Fashion Week opens”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     The frippery-filled world of fashion confounded its critics yesterday when it became sombre and serious in the wake of the terrorist attacks in the US.

   • 2023 May 8, Nesrine Malik, “The coronation pulled a screen across a desperate, failing nation – just as intended”, in The Guardian‎^[3], →ISSN:

     And so frippery and force combine to make a political position – support for the monarchy – seem like the natural, sacred default.

2. Useless things; trifles.
   • 1892 April, Frederick Law Olmsted, Report by F.L.O., quoted in 2003, Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, New York, N.Y.: Crown Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 170:

     [Olmsted reiterated his insistence that in Chicago] simplicity and reserve will be practiced and petty effects and frippery avoided.

   • 1900, C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne, The Lost Continent‎^[4]:

     “At any rate you see me still unmarried. I have found no time to palter with the fripperies of women.”

   • 2014 October 21, Oliver Brown, “Oscar Pistorius jailed for five years – sport afforded no protection against his tragic fallibilities”, in The Daily Telegraph (Sport)‎^[5]:

     [Oscar] Pistorius's punishment for killing her [Reeva Steenkamp] that night is but a frippery when set against the burden that her bereft parents, June and Barry, must carry.

3. (obsolete) Cast-off clothes.
   • 1598, Beniamin Ionson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Euery Man in His Humour. A Comœdie. […]”, in The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby, published 1616, →OCLC, Act I, scene ii, page 9:

     If thou doſt, come ouer, and but ſee our fripperie: change an olde ſhirt, for a whole ſmocke, with vs.

4. (obsolete) The trade or traffic in old clothes.
5. (obsolete) The place where old clothes are sold.
   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i], page 15, column 2:

     Oh, ho, Monſter: wee know what belongs to a frippery, O King Stephano.

6. Hence: secondhand finery; cheap and tawdry decoration; affected elegance.
   • 1773, [Oliver] Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer: Or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. […], London: […] F[rancis] Newbery, […], →OCLC, Act I, page 5:

     There's my pretty darling Kate; the faſhions of the times have almoſt infected her too. By living a year or two in town, ſhe is as fond of gauze, and French frippery, as the beſt of them.

   • 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], chapter XVII, in Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC, page 267:

     […] but consider I was born in the land of talisman and spell, and my childhood lulled by tales which you can only enjoy through the gauzy frippery of a French translation.

   • 1846, Charles Dickens, “Rome”, in Pictures from Italy, London: […] Bradbury & Evans, […], →OCLC, page 166:

     But, there were preparations for a Festa; the pillars of stately marble were swathed in some impertinent frippery of red and yellow […]

   • 1848, anonymous author, “Review of Wuthering Heights”, in Examiner:

     We detest the affectation and effeminate frippery which is but too frequent in the modern novel

Translations

Useless things; trifles

• Bulgarian: дрънкулки (bg) f pl (drǎnkulki)
• Russian: мишура (ru) (mišura), безделушки (ru) (bezdeluški)

secondhand finery; cheap and tawdry decoration; affected elegance

• French: oripeaux (fr) m pl

References

• 1897 Universal Dictionary of the English Language, Robert Hunter and Charles Morris, eds., v 2 p 2213. [for entries 2, 3, 4, & 5]: Frippery (Page: 597)

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “frippery”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)