Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Pretentious, showy finery.
- n. Pretentious elegance; ostentation.
- n. Something trivial or nonessential.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Trade or traffic in old clothes.
- n. A place where old clothes are sold.
- n. Old clothes; cast-off garments; clothing discarded after wearing.
- n. Hence Worthless or useless trifles; trumpery; gewgaws.
- Trifling; frivolous; contemptible; trumpery.
Wiktionary
- n. Ostentation, as in fancy clothing.
- n. Useless things; trifles.
- n. obsolete Cast-off clothes.
- n. obsolete The trade or traffic in old clothes.
- n. obsolete The place where old clothes are sold.
- n. Hence: secondhand finery; cheap and tawdry decoration; affected elegance.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. obsolete Coast-off clothes.
- n. Hence: Secondhand finery; cheap and tawdry decoration; affected elegance.
- n. A place where old clothes are sold.
- n. The trade or traffic in old clothes.
- adj. Trifling; contemptible.
WordNet 3.0
- n. something of little value or significance
Etymologies
- From French friperie. From Old French fripier ("to rub up and down, to wear into rags"). Compare fripper. (Wiktionary)
- French friperie, from Old French freperie, old clothes, from felpe, frepe, from Medieval Latin faluppa, worthless material. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Gloves, an Ell or two of Muslin or figured Lawn, and as a little of what you call frippery is very necessary towards looking like the rest of the world, Nabby would have me add, a few yard of Black or”
“In San Francisco, Tim meets Jay, calls his frippery-based collection the equivalent of”
“Ignore the insanely complex and expensive parallelogram-hinged door frippery, which is strictly concept; the car does provide some design clues.”
“Miss Roberts never could stand what she called 'frippery' in dress or hair style.”
“The three gorgeously caparisoned chamberlains, who had inducted me to the shelter, laid before me changes of raiment bedecked with every imaginable kind of frippery, and would have me transform myself into a popinjay in fashion like their own.”
“All this kind of frippery smacks of the boarding school, the pirouette, and the dancing master, and is out of character for the farm, or the sensible retirement of the country.”
Rural Architecture Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings
“Joe's favorite word is "frippery," which he likes because it sounds funny and not because he's found a way to work it into conversation.”
“There's a solid, if unremarkable racing game buried underneath all this pointless frippery and camera-wobbling, but it's one that fails to provide either the dogged authenticity of Gran Turismo 5 or the balls-to-the-wall rush of Blur or Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit.”
“But such frippery doesn't seem to sink to the level of even a Dis-Honorable Mention, in our humble opinion.”
The Huffington Post: Chris Weigant: Friday Talking Points -- Budget Standoff Continues
“Cars like the Subaru Impreza WRX and Mazda's hatchbacks are loved for their rough-and-tumble rally personalities, not for interior frippery or extra design cues.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘frippery’.
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set phasers to...
you name the setting
I've tuned mine to be gentler and kinder
following suit is not mandatory but would be appreciatedcoddle, confuse, flummox, tap, furrow, instigate, invigorate, punnify, logical, must... act... be..., bowdlerise, laughing gas and 435 more...
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goodkitten's list
there is going to be a lot of words...
flammivomous, pep, electrolyzation, research, constrain, why, refrigerator, invisible, windblown, curate's egg, echoism, drumble and 103 more...
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Not edible
Things that sound edible but are not (usually). See Liberty's To Eat, or Not to Eat? for more diet food.
cinnabar, dulcimer, belfries, potto, maltha, grapple, loam, rake, tort, pomade, buffalo chip, wedgie and 172 more...
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Hence
Words with definitions that have a "hence" in them.
hanger, Deet, tripe, spindlelegs, fiddle, store, pluck, snap, villain, link, comedy, particular and 410 more...
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Franco
fin-de-siècle, sang-froid, minatory, loup, son et lumière, bonhomie, l'heure bleue, frippery, pamplemousse, adieu, au revoir, visage and 22 more...
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Desultory Digressions
Also known as EsotericWench's Word Holding Tank. These are words that have caught my fancy but I have yet to file in the appropriate list. If I don't capture them here, I won't capture them at all.
desultory, abjure, immethodical, mentalist, subvertising, schmaltzy, fartlek, interstitial, ear-rent, brouhaha, crufty, malefactor and 34 more...
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words I learned from Firefly
Joss Whedon knows no shame
fancible, foufaraw, frippery, corpsified, shindig, rutting, creepifying, gorram, ironical, sanguine, pantywaist ijit, whinge and 24 more...
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Valuseless
Of low worth or little importance.
Unwanted matter by drusky is a nice, related list.trivial, cheap, inutile, ineffectual, dross, floccinaucinihili..., gimcrack, frippery, invalidated, drivel, otiose, tripe and 91 more...
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Words That Wish They Were Creperie
You wish you were a creperie.
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colleen's words
yellow, green, pie, blue, fur, people, incense, book, brown, avuncular, mountain, fog and 1316 more...
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Faves
nepenthe, cupidity, anodyne, obdurate, doleful, obsolescent, quale, piquant, velleity, inchoate, disport, facile and 366 more...
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good ones
grumble, fumble, bumble, stumble, crumble, mumble, jumble, humble, bramble, scramble, amble, ramble and 191 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, F
felony, frolic, fend, fuselage, farthingale, freewheeling, frigorific, flummery, fancypants, felsitic, flagstone, flageolet and 295 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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Words Covered in Faery Dust (F)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
faery, fairy cross, fairy ring, falcon, fare-thee-well, farewell-summer, farthing, faun, fawn, felicitous, felicity, fencing and 109 more...
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Listless
Nowhere else to put these yet.
sibilant, cloying, pithy, apologia, odyssey, amanuensis, pleasantries, ginormous, burnish, sojourn, quonset, over-under and 217 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for frippery.
billyvonraven From OED:
d. fig. Empty display, esp. in speech or literary composition; showy talk; ostentation. Jun 8, 2009
thesaraheffect "WHEREAS For damage caused by lightning, earthquakes, floods, fire, frost or frippery of any sort, kind or condition, consequently the undersigned take responsibility."
Feb 23, 2009
sionnach I've always thought of this as a noun, and not as a legitimate adjective. Nov 14, 2007
halcyonwhimsy This can mean a lot, but I like it for describing someone or someone's manners/dress when writing.
showy; gaudy; nonessential, trivial Oct 2, 2007