bric-a-brac
/ˈbɹɪkəˌbɹæk/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.29 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "No doubt her pleasure would have been at that moment to give him not only that gold which she had been saving up against rent-day, but the spoons, the furniture, and all the valuables of the house, including, perhaps, J. J.'s bricabrac, cabinets, china, and so forth."
- "Haven't an affair in the world, […] except a quarrel with a bric-à-brac man."
- "Indeed, who wants the real animal or hunter? What would that do amid astral and bric-a-brac and tapestry, and ladies and gentlemen talking in subdued tones of [Robert] Browning and [Henry Wadsworth] Longfellow and art?"
- ""Well, mi casa su casa," said Corbin as they rounded the final bend. They were standing in a cozy maintenance alcove with a sleeping roll on a memory foam mattress on the floor, a series of labelled duffel bags, a space heater and dehumidifier locked in eternal stalemate, a card table and two chairs, and a wide variety of bric-a-brac. There were safety and information posters on the walls, rips and creases showing that they'd been liberated from their original points of fixture. There were photographs mac-tac'd to conduits and concrete. There was even a sad little pot plant beneath a slowly leaking pipe — pot pot, Udo realized, and she almost smiled."
- "Yes: I think he is a good fellow: rather miscellaneous and bric-à-brac, but likable."
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.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈbɹɪkəˌbɹæk/
- British English: /ˈbɹɪkəbɹæk/