Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Something made or put together using whatever materials happen to be available.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable Construction using whatever was available at the time.
  • noun countable Something constructed using whatever was available at the time.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from bricole, trifle, from Old French, catapult, from Old Italian briccola, of Germanic origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Borrowing from French

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Examples

  • I was using the term bricolage really with a view to things working within a particular environment, and not necessarily being used in the same way they were intended to be used.

    Disquiet » Bric House 1997

  • One of the ways of understanding the word bricolage, historically, is to 'putter about.'

    Tom Sachs Tom Vanderbilt 2011

  • Before she went over to gigantism, Frey worked at a scale that allowed her to channel this fascination into what she called her bricolage sculptures.

    Latest News 2010

  • Before she went over to gigantism, Frey worked at a scale that allowed her to channel this fascination into what she called her bricolage sculptures.

    Latest News 2010

  • Before she went over to gigantism, Frey worked at a scale that allowed her to channel this fascination into what she called her bricolage sculptures.

    Latest News 2010

  • Before she went over to gigantism, Frey worked at a scale that allowed her to channel this fascination into what she called her bricolage sculptures.

    Latest News 2010

  • I learned that Claude Levi-Strauss, the French anthropologist, coined a term bricolage to describe the thought patterns and learning processes of "primitive" societies.

    NCBlogs 2010

  • He discussed an interesting concept: bricolage, which is basically a convoluted term for the English's "do it yourself," or DIY attitude.

    Shaun Johnson: How Can Punk Rock Enlighten the Education Reform Debate? Shaun Johnson 2011

  • He discussed an interesting concept: bricolage, which is basically a convoluted term for the English's "do it yourself," or DIY attitude.

    Shaun Johnson: How Can Punk Rock Enlighten the Education Reform Debate? Shaun Johnson 2011

  • Steven Johnson's great book Where Good Ideas Come From uses the term "bricolage" to describe the random and often undervalued raw material from which innovations are crafted.

    Michael J. Critelli: Playing With What You've Got Michael J. Critelli 2011

  • The anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss talks about the process of bricolage, the way an artists will create their own world out of scraps of different materials.

    Ten Useful Concepts Ian Leslie 2024

  • Rowling is a wizard herself at the magic art of bricolage: new stories crafted out of recycled pieces of old stories.

    Wendy Doniger · Can you spot the source? Harry Potter Explained · LRB 17 February 2000 Wendy Doniger 2022

Comments

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  • The Internet is a global bricolage, lashing together unthinkable complexities of miscellaneous computers with temporary lengths of phone line and fiber optic, bits of Ethernet cable and strings of code.

    -- Bernard Sharratt, "Only Connected", New York Times, December 17, 1995

    January 2, 2007

  • definition: construction (as of a sculpture or a structure of ideas) achieved by using whatever comes to hand; something constructed this way.

    see collage

    January 2, 2007

  • "But Dionysiac themes were ever present in the pagen/Jewish culture in which Jesus' followers sought to interpret their leader's brief life and tortured death. There were forty years between Jesus' death and the first written account of his life—time enough for his followers to assemble a myth of his divine lineage and mission out of the cultural bricolage available to them, which already included the notion of a wine-bringing, life-giving, populist, victim god."

    —Barbara Ehrenreich, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), 64

    March 12, 2009