trinket

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“
Evidently in her opinion the trinket was an old-fashioned thing You can understand that as soon as your dear mamma did me the honor of asking for a fan, I went round of all the curiosity shops in Paris, but I found nothing fine enough.

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Definitions (12)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun A small ornament, such as a piece of jewelry.
  2. noun A trivial thing; a trifle.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (6)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

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Examples (50)

  • Keeping that trinket--showing it off--was Joy's way of saying, This is how much he loved me. —  AHMM,June2006
  • I would not have taken five hundred dollars for it Unable to locate Bittman's vanished trinket, the adventurers set out in search of breakfast. —  002 - The Land of Terror
  • I gave Mataka a trinket, to be kept in remembrance of his having sent back the Nyassa people: he replied that he would always act in a similar manner. —  The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I
  • It may be remembered that a trinket, apparently broken from his watch-chain, was found in the grounds of this house on the day that he disappeared, and that he was never again seen alive. —  The Eye of Osiris
  • Taking advantage of the familiarity that had thus grown up between the broker and the trinket, as a means of dispensing with the usual and requisite examination, a gilt chain had been substituted for the gold one, which had been so often deposited with the watch; and the deception had passed unnoticed until it was too late. —  Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman
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Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

jewelry ·  bauble ·  necklace ·  jewel ·  medal ·  souvenir ·  utensil ·  ornament ·  bead ·  artifacts ·  toy ·  ware

Used in the same contextWord Family

trinket:   trinkets
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (6)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Origin unknown.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (5)

  1. Early modern English also trinkette, trynket, trynkette, trenket; from Middle English trynket, trenket, trenkett, from Old French *trenquet, also assibilated trenchet, tranchet, a shoemakers' knife (=Spanish trinchete, a shoemakers' paring-knife, tranchete, a shoemakers' heel-knife, a broad curved knife for pruning), from *trenquer, trencher, French trancher, cut: see trench. The order of development seems to have been ‘knife,’ ‘ornamental knife,’ ‘any glittering ornament.’ There may have been some confusion with the different word trinket. Cf. trink, trinkery.
  2. Formerly sometimes trinquet; from trinket, n.
  3. Perhaps from Welsh tranced, a cup with a handle, apparently confused with drink, or with Old French trinquer =Italian trincare, drink, quaff, carouse, from Middle High German G. trinken, drink: see drink.
  4. Also trinquet, trinkette; from Old French trinquet, the highest sail (Cotgrave), French trinquet, foremast (in lateen-rigged vessels), trinquette, forestaysail, storm-jib, =Spanish trinquete, foremast, foresail, trinket, also tennis (trinquetilla, forestaysail) (Newman), =Portuguese trinquete, trinket, =Italian trinchetto, a topsail, etc.; perhaps orig. a ‘three-cornered’ sail, from Latin triquetrus, three-cornered, triangular: see triquetrous. The nasalization may have been due to association with Spanish trincar, keep close to the wind (trincar los cabos, fasten the ropeends), from trinca, a rope for lashing fast (see trink).
  5. apparently for *trinklet, from trinkle + -et; a variant of tricklet.
 

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/ˈtrɪŋkɛt/
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