Bric-a-brac

//ˈbɹɪkəbɹæk// noun

noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Small ornaments and other miscellaneous display items of little value. also, attributive, uncountable, usually

    "The palace of Versailles has been turned into a bricabrac shop, of late years; and its time-honoured walls have been covered with many thousand yards of the worst pictures that eye ever looked on."

  2. 2
    miscellaneous curios wordnet
  3. 3
    Any collection containing a variety of miscellaneous items; a hodgepodge, an olio. also, attributive, broadly, uncountable, usually

    "Yes: I think he is a good fellow: rather miscellaneous and bric-à-brac, but likable."

Synonyms

All synonyms
art objectart workbagatellebaublebaublebaubles

Example

More examples

"The shop sells all sorts of bric-a-brac."

Etymology

Borrowed from French bric-à-brac (“miscellaneous items of little value”), apparently from à bricq et à bracq (“at random; haphazardly”); bricq and bracq are expressive onomatopoeias of obscure origin.

Related phrases

bric-a-brackerbric-a-brackerybric-a-bracqueriebrickety-brack

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.