Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A small, showy ornament of little value; a trinket.
- n. Archaic A mock scepter carried by a court jester.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A child's plaything or toy.
- n. A trifling piece of finery; that which is gay or showy without real value; a gewgaw.
- n. A trifle; a thing of little or no value; a childish or foolish matter or affair.
- Trifling; insignificant; contemptible.
- Also spelled bawble.
- To trifle.
- n. Primarily, a sort of scepter or staff of office, the attribute of Folly personified, carried by the jesters of kings and great lords in the middle ages, and down to the seventeenth century. It is generally represented as crowned with the head of a fool or zany, wearing a party-colored hood with asses' ears, and with a ring of little bells, like sleigh-bells. At the other end there was sometimes a ball or bladder inflated with air, with which to belabor people. Also spelled
bawble .
Wiktionary
- n. A cheap showy ornament piece of jewellery; a gewgaw.
- n. A club or sceptre carried by a jester.
- n. A small shiny spherical decoration, commonly put on Christmas trees.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A trifling piece of finery; a gewgaw; that which is gay and showy without real value; a cheap, showy plaything.
- n. obsolete The fool's club.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a mock scepter carried by a court jester
- n. cheap showy jewelry or ornament on clothing
Etymologies
- From Old French baubel ("trinket, child's toy"), most likely a reduplication of bel, ultimately from Latin bellus ("pretty"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English babel, from Old French, plaything. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The former was dressed in "a parti-colored dress, including a cowl, which ended in a cock's-head, and was winged with a couple of long ears; he, moreover, carried in his hand a stick called his bauble, terminating either in an inflated bladder or some other ludicrous object, to be employed in slapping inadvertent neighbors.”
“To Paul the bauble was a bit of the warm wonder that was she.”
“For the great tassels still hung at the sides and – Well! you may call it an impossible find or say that if the bauble was there it should have been discovered in the first search for it!”
“Logically, to refuse the bauble is the correct action.”
“she said, noting that the bauble is a happy reminder of her thirteen-year marriage.”
“Sergeant-at-Arms elevated his mace -- that "bauble" of authority so distasteful to the Puritans -- and the Speaker began to swear in the members State by State.”
Perley's Reminiscences, v. 1-2 of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis
“Cromwell at Marston Moor, and, resisting the Protector when he removed the "bauble," was one of the patriots incarcerated in "Hell hole.”
“Moor, and, resisting the Protector when he removed the "bauble," was one of the patriots incarcerated in "Hell hole.”
“The staves, instead of the crown, were surmounted by quartern measures, and produced a most striking and novel effect, as they appeared to be more reverenced and respected than that gaudy bauble which is a representative of Royalty.”
“The word "bauble" was audibly and curiously repeated.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘bauble’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Iaan
dirigisme, dystopia, cacotopia, ex ante, veritable, indefatigable, curmudgeon, desultory, antediluvian, transmogrify, pendent, elongate and 272 more...
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Test Prep or Just for fun
Building a list for standardized test prep or just for learning some new words! Please add any words that you feel are important for the SAT/GRE/GMAT etc...
throng, morass, parley, facile, kismet, strife, jetsam, carrion, annex, harbinger, vestige, surreptitious and 575 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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TheLaughorist's list
Solipsistic Stew
sphalm, solipsism, philopolemic, fulgor, dorbel, elozable, amnion, woiwode, illiquid, pinkwash, clawback, folderol and 9 more...
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Favorite adjectives - sinfully delici...
words that, when used in an unusual context, make you stop, stare, and read the sentence over and over again. LisaWrites - resource
sycophantic, doughface, unctuous, sebaceous, oleaginous, diabolic, ostent, sudatory, bulbous, pustule, bauble, trinket and 6 more...
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ChortleGiggleSnort
Significant Words- Guiding you on your path to Snazzibility
flimsy, feeble, ranting, ramble, narky, snazzy, yoghurt, bulbous, pustule, globulous, geranium, megalomaniac and 521 more...
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GRE Words
abjure, unswear, state, rescission, indemnification, ab, reny, abnegate, vitiated, vitiate, adumbrated, abash and 378 more...
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Pale Fire
Words gathered while reading Pale Fire.
larches, torquate, stillicide, vermiculate, preterist, theolatry, iridule, vulgarian, cloutish, lemniscate, torsion, trillium and 176 more...
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Vocab
Words that I come across, and go blank, or want to clarify.
nefarious, edifice, malevolent, ostensible, folderol, bauble, livid, amnesty, calculus, saddlery, maisonette, cuisse and 423 more...
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My GRE words
abase, abate, aberrant, abet, abeyance, abject, abjure, ablution, abnegation, abortive, abrogate, abscission and 140 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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artoparts's Words
illation, finite, edify, abide, abrade, vouch, amiss, vociferate, perusing, techantiquery, rigamarole, holon and 615 more...
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-bles
fine find endings
able, amble, bable, cable, cible, coble, dable, fable, gable, gible, tible, table and 241 more...
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beautiful words
quench, metropolitan, dollop, cucumber, aesthetic, superfluous, gastronomy, nymph, obsequious, serendipity, champagne, gossamer and 125 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for bauble.
alguien This word brings to mind those blown-glass sphere-things that float. I don't know what those sphere-things are actually called, but they should be called baubles. Mar 28, 2007
brtom Perish the baubles! Your person is all I desire.
Goldsmith, She Stoops, II Jan 10, 2007