Frippery
noun ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Ostentation, as in fancy clothing. countable, uncountable
"Young women of such birth, living in a quiet country-house, and attending a village church hardly larger than a parlor, naturally regarded frippery as the ambition of a huckster’s daughter."
- 2 something of little value or significance wordnet
- 3 Useless things; trifles. countable, uncountable
"[Olmsted reiterated his insistence that in Chicago] simplicity and reserve will be practiced and petty effects and frippery avoided."
- 4 Cast-off clothes. countable, obsolete, uncountable
"If thou doſt, come ouer, and but ſee our fripperie: change an olde ſhirt, for a whole ſmocke, with vs."
- 5 The trade or traffic in old clothes. countable, obsolete, uncountable
Show 2 more definitions
- 6 The place where old clothes are sold. countable, obsolete, uncountable
"Oh, ho, Monſter: wee know what belongs to a frippery, O King Stephano."
- 7 Hence: secondhand finery; cheap and tawdry decoration; affected elegance. countable, uncountable
"There's my pretty darling Kate; the faſhions of the times have almoſt infected her too. By living a year or two in town, ſhe is as fond of gauze, and French frippery, as the beſt of them."
Example
More examples"Mary doesn't need all that frippery for a simple visit to church."
Etymology
From French friperie, from Old French fripier (“to rub up and down, to wear into rags”). Compare fripper.