tchotchke

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noun tchotch·ke \ ˈchäch-kə , -kē , ˈtsäts- \

Definition of tchotchke

:knickknack, trinket

tchotchke was our Word of the Day on 02/28/2013. Hear the podcast!

Examples of tchotchke in a Sentence

a bedroom with polka-dot curtains, flowery wallpaper, and shelves cluttered with tchotchkes from a lifetime of vacations

Recent Examples of tchotchke from the Web

But theme meals and tchotchkes would not be enough to lure the 600,000 visitors who come to Graceland each year, even now, 40 years later.

— kostya kennedy, Time, "He’ll Always Be Elvis: Remembering the 'King' 40 Years On," 22 July 2017
On Saturday, July 15, the Silver Room Block Party turned 53rd Street in Hyde Park into a giant outdoor festival, overflowing with live music, pop-up art exhibits, spontaneous dance parties, and vendors selling food, books, clothes, and tchotchkes.

— morgan elise johnson, Chicago Reader, "Arts / Music / Neighborhoods The 2017 Silver Room Block Party was too much celebration to capture on camera—but we tried," 18 July 2017
Fifth Harmony used to tour malls like this: shopped from town to town, crammed between kiosks for tchotchkes and lit by department store signs.

— chris martins, Billboard, "How Fifth Harmony Moved On and Took Control of Their Music: 'The Fans Are Our Fifth Member'," 13 July 2017
Elephant ivory is one of the biggest—each year, some 30,000 elephants are killed in Africa to meet demand for ivory, mainly in China, where it’s carved into intricate works of art, jewelry, and tchotchkes.

— National Geographic, "Chinese Youth Embrace New Attitudes Toward Pets and Wildlife," 12 July 2017
Then, on a lark, Neino joined a team that competed at the 2011 Defcon 19 hacking contest in Las Vegas and won a coveted Black Badge, a tchotchke shaped like a skull, almost actual size, designed to hang around the neck.

— jill leovy, The Seattle Times, "Unlikely duo pulled the plug on WannaCry cyberattack," 7 July 2017
In the next room — inside heavy wooden drawers, beneath bubble wrap — were a sample of the tchotchkes that Williams had collected.

— christopher borrelli, chicagotribune.com, "Why would a Chicago library collect racially insensitive art?," 3 July 2017
The set looks like the tchotchke aisle at the Salvation Army Store.

— susan mitchell, OrlandoSentinel.com, "'Living Room, The Sitcom' at Orlando Fringe Festival," 21 May 2017
JERUSALEM — There aren't as many Trump tchotchkes or posters visible as when past U.S. presidents have visited Israel for the first time.

— noga tarnopolsky, USA TODAY, "Israel appears subdued ahead of President Trump's visit," 19 May 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'tchotchke.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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. While many such words are of unknown origin, we know that tchotchke comes from the Yiddish 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.