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

• ornamental
• souvenir
• knickknack
• ornament
• gewgaw

Examples of tchotchke in a Sentence

shelves cluttered with tchotchkes from a lifetime of vacations

Recent Examples on the Web

Most of us have houses overflowing with sentimental items: tchotchkes from a trip to the Grand Canyon, Mom's favorite mixing bowls, a box of the kids' school papers, greeting cards from childhood. —Brandee Gruener, Southern Living, 6 July 2025

The sturdy, striking display is the perfect home for your favorite products, candles, and tchotchkes. —Kristi Kellogg, Architectural Digest, 25 Mar. 2025

But while middle-class parents empty their wallets on tchotchkes, billionaires hoard the real thing, with hedge fund managers, tech CEOs, and art collectors driving fossil prices ever higher. —Catherine Baab-Muguira, Quartz, 3 Apr. 2025

The shops on this street used to sell things people actually needed—clothes, shoes, dry goods, groceries, hardware—not just tchotchkes. —Literary Hub, 12 June 2025

Word History

Etymology

Yiddish tshatshke trinket, from obsolete Polish czaczko

First Known Use

1971, in the meaning defined above

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