Word of the Day

: February 28, 2013

tchotchke

noun CHAHCH-kuh

What It Means

: knickknack, trinket

tchotchke in Context

Upon returning home from his trip to Maine, Jerry ceremoniously placed his new ceramic lobster next to the other tchotchkes on his mantelpiece.

"Everywhere there is something to delight the eye-not tchotchkes, but art. Eccentric art, angular art, modern art, all a signifier of personal style." - From an article in Palm Beach Post, January 12, 2013

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.