Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A decorative trinket; a bauble.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A showy trifle; a pretty thing of little worth; a toy; a bauble; a gaudy plaything or ornament.
- n. A pipe or flute.
- n. A Jew′ s-harp.
- Showy, without substantial use or worth.
Wiktionary
- n. A showy trifle, a toy; a showy ornament or decoration. [from 15th c.]
- adj. Showy; unreal; pretentious.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A showy trifle; a toy; a splendid plaything; a pretty but worthless bauble.
- adj. Showy; unreal; pretentious.
WordNet 3.0
- n. cheap showy jewelry or ornament on clothing
Etymologies
- Middle English giuegaue.
Examples
“For profit -- his life blood transmuted into a wine-supper, or a jewelled gewgaw, or some similar sense-orgy of the parasitic and idle rich, his masters, the arch-beasts. ”
“Yet, if they won, they would be buying both the gewgaw and a print-out of the story.”
The Guardian: For sale: the ashtray that inspired William Gibson
“I had no problems w/the scent/aroma of da Quarter (aside from Bourbon St. which I generally avoid when in town - tho 'Yesteryear's always has some gewgaw I must possess).”
“Grab the first gewgaw and just do it, quick, like ripping off a Band-Aid.”
“Sadly, the book prizes are restricted to residents of the British isles, but as a compensation a further 3 correct entries from outwith these sceptered isles will receive a nifty wee promotional-type gewgaw currently to be decided upon.”
Seeds Of Earth Competition! – Updated « INTERSTELLAR TACTICS
“That just seems common sense at this point: that ‘brand’ is about all the touchpoints with your customers and partners, not just your logo, and not just the latest RIA gewgaw on your homepage.”
“Mathayus plans to journey to Egypt to get a mystical weapon to help him defeat the evil Sargon, but quickly learns that he must get a different magic gewgaw, the sword of Damocles, in order to kill his foe.”
“Hunting through the yard sales, second hand shops, and antique malls for a gewgaw is delightful challenge.”
“Alas, I cannot find it in my eleemosynary nature to weep a solitary tear for this haut bourgeois pretender and his gewgaw-bearing mate.”
“Handsome settlements, and a chariot, that tempting gewgaw to the vanity of the middling class of females, were the least that she proposed to herself.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘gewgaw’.
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Only the Vowels are Different
hip-hop, fiddle-faddle, mishmash, flip-flop, chit-chat, riffraff, knick-knack, ping-pong, zigzag, sing-song, criss-cross, seesaw and 14 more...
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Satisfyingly reduplicative words
flimflam, dillydally, fimblefamble, chitchat, teeter totter, gewgaw, hip hop, criss cross, king kong, rickrack, knickknack, shilly shally and 5 more...
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Actual Words
I checked, because I wasn't sure, but these words were coined and entered into a dictionary before I thought them up.
dishevelment, commoditize, feck, foppery, grimoire, apposite, impassible, reparable, arithmomania, patois, absquatulate, scopperil and 8 more...
en_dash antonym: Le Corbusier May 2, 2007
uselessness It means, well, me. In a nutshell.
(You may also find the dictionary link above to be helpful. But like I said, it means me.) Mar 23, 2007
mager what does this mean? Mar 23, 2007