tchotchke
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English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
First attested in American English in 1964, from Yiddish טשאַטשקע (tshatshke, “trinket”), from Polish cacko; compare Russian ца́цка (cácka).[1]
Pronunciation[edit]
Audio (US) (file)
Noun[edit]
tchotchke (plural tchotchkes)
- (Canada, US) A trinket.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:trinket
- 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.
- (Canada, US, dated) An attractive woman or girl.
- Synonym: bimbo
See also[edit]
Further reading[edit]
- “tchotchke”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.
References[edit]
- ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2022), “tchotchke”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.