tchotchke

noun

tchotch·ke ˈchäch-kə

-kē,

ˈtsäts-

plural tchotchkes

Synonyms of tchotchke next

: knickknack, trinket

Carlene's furniture was garish and awful and every shelf or corner held tchotchkes and gewgaws and other tacky trinkets.—

Ingrid Law

… collecting every sort of art, from Old Masters to precious textiles, from rare books and manuscripts to antique tchotchkes.—

Diane Wood Middlebrook

Still crowding his apartment and warehouses is an assemblage that includes pre-Columbian and African statuary, Charles Eames chairs, bent-wood furniture, postage stamps, patent models, busts of Roman emperors and, Wilder readily admits, tchotchkes.—

Susan Reed and Doris Bacon

Did you know?

Just as trinkets can dress up your shelves or coffee table, many words for "miscellaneous objects" or "nondescript junk" decorate our language. Knickknack, doodad, gewgaw, and whatnot are some of the more common ones. We also have gimcrack, bauble, and bibelot. While many such words are of unknown origin, we know that tchotchke comes from the Yiddish word tshatshke of the same meaning, and ultimately from a now-obsolete Polish word, czaczko. Tchotchke is a pretty popular word these days, but it wasn't commonly used in English until the 1970s.

Examples of tchotchke in a Sentence

shelves cluttered with tchotchkes from a lifetime of vacations

Recent Examples on the Web

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Use it for books, plants, tchotchkes, or all the above. —

Olivia Young, Travel + Leisure, 26 Oct. 2024 It’s adorned with shelves to stash away their favorite books at arm’s reach (or knowing kids, storing tiny toys and tchotchkes galore). —

India Roby, Architectural Digest, 5 Sep. 2024 There’s not a lobster tchotchke or lighthouse watercolor in sight. —

Lila Battis, Travel + Leisure, 10 Aug. 2024 What makes Longfellow stand out The bar is decorated with old Odd Fellows flags, bookshelves featuring vintage tomes, various tchotchkes and a tea canister MacGyvered into beer taps. —

Keith Pandolfi, The Enquirer, 29 July 2024 See all Example Sentences for tchotchke