bricolage

noun

bri·​co·​lage ˌbrē-kō-ˈläzh 

ˌbri-

: construction (as of a sculpture or a structure of ideas) achieved by using whatever comes to hand

also : something constructed in this way

Did you know?

Bricolage Has French Roots

According to French social anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, the artist "shapes the beautiful and useful out of the dump heap of human life." Lévi-Strauss compared this artistic process to the work of a handyman who solves technical or mechanical problems with whatever materials are available. He referred to that process of making do as bricolage, a term derived from the French verb bricoler (meaning "to putter about") and related to bricoleur, the French name for a jack-of-all-trades. Bricolage made its way from French to English during the 1960s, and it is now used for everything from the creative uses of leftovers ("culinary bricolage") to the cobbling together of disparate computer parts ("technical bricolage").

Examples of bricolage in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Accordingly, Water From Your Eyes’ proggy, taut, alt-rock bricolage captures an existential absurdity. —Jenn Pelly, Time, 4 Dec. 2025

Her early fiction reads like discursive bricolage: not quite directionless, but scarcely linear. —Victor J. Blue, Harpers Magazine, 23 Nov. 2025

This was bricolage in the mode of postmodernism, to use a term that Jencks had a leading role in propagating, defining it in multiple competing and overlapping (some would say maddening) ways. —Glenn Adamson, Artforum, 1 June 2025

Rather, there was a bricolage of fantasized pasts, with lavish furs and ornate embellishment reimagined for everyday wear. —Alice Pfeiffer, CNN, 12 Mar. 2025

Word History

Etymology

French, from bricoler to putter about

First Known Use

1960, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for bricolage

• foliage

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