tchotchke

noun

tchotch·​ke ˈchäch-kə 

-kē, 

ˈtsäts- 

plural tchotchkes

: 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.

Synonyms of tchotchke

• ornamental
• souvenir
• ornament
• knickknack
• gewgaw

Examples of tchotchke in a Sentence

shelves cluttered with tchotchkes from a lifetime of vacations

Recent Examples on the Web

During Ghost Month, the seventh month of the Chinese lunisolar calendar, auctioneers sell seemingly ordinary items—backpacks, calculators, tchotchkes—imbued with a spiritual charge thought to bring good luck. —Dan Piepenbring, Harpers Magazine, 23 Nov. 2025

Chocolates and tchotchkes are fun but overdone, and oftentimes, totally useless. —Alyssa Grabinski, PEOPLE, 21 Nov. 2025

Lastly, the age of buying tchotchkes on late-night TV may be coming back courtesy of YouTube. —ArsTechnica, 29 Oct. 2025

Blasena emphasizes that lighting and draping that eliminates unsightly walls can make a space feel intimate, while a focal bar, signature cocktails, a photo booth, and late-night tchotchkes, such as glow sticks, flashing glasses, and flip flops, can amp up the atmosphere. —Shelby Wax, Vogue, 24 Oct. 2025

Word History

Etymology

Yiddish tshatshke trinket, from obsolete Polish czaczko

First Known Use

1971, in the meaning defined above

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