Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A small ornamental article; a trinket.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A pleasing trifle; something more ornamental than useful; a trinket; a toy; a kickshaw; an unsubstantial dainty: a word, of very indefinite application, nearly always used in the plural.
- n. A small trick; a deceitful practice.
Wiktionary
- n. alternative spelling of knick-knack.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A trifle or toy; a bawble; a gewgaw; a tchotchke.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a small inexpensive mass-produced article
- n. miscellaneous curios
Etymologies
- Reduplication of knack.
Examples
“You can already buy every kind of knickknack imaginable in Galveston, and if I wanted trinkets, baubles or other tchotchkes I would probably go down to the Strand.”
“a little tradin ', and I run acrost a new kind of knickknack, which it seemed like to me it was about the best thing I ever tasted in my whole life.”
The Best Short Stories of 1917 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story
“I used to think 'knickknack' was French for 'small, ugly ceramic poodle. ”
Mistress of Justice
“Each piece of furniture and knickknack had its own story.”
“She picked up a gold ring from a knickknack ashtray on the bookcase.”
“The Nazis had perpetrated the worst crimes in the history of the world and here I had this little knickknack.”
“In desperation I grabbed the engraved plaques from Toastmasters, the wooden clock my ex-husband had made, a redwood jewelry box, garage sale picture frames waiting for family photos, knickknack shelves that needed glue.”
“A woman who had taken cover behind a glass knickknack case pointed timorously to the staircase leading up to the second floor.”
“The Parkview Shopping Center, once a bustling hangout for high-schoolers and determined shopaholics, was all but deserted, its high-end shops long gone, now little more than a collection of dollar stores and knickknack emporiums.”
“I walked past the magazine racks and knickknack glass counters with jewelry and fancy perfume bottles to the restaurant.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘knickknack’.
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knack
know-how, art, hang, bent, flair, touch, method, nose, genius, gift, faculty, instinct 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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I didn't expect to see THAT letter doubled!
aa, savvy, divvy, powwow, matchhead, skiing, hajj, trekking, continuum, vacuum, bathhouse, fishhook and 37 more...
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