paraphernalia
/ˌpɛɹəfɚˈneɪli.ə/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.97 in modern English
20
Scrabble Score
13
Letters
5
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Miscellaneous items, especially the set of equipment required for a particular activity.
noun
Objects that a married woman owns, such as clothing and jewellery, apart from her dowry.
Archaic
Example Sentences
- "drug paraphernalia"
- "He has an impressive collection of bicycling paraphernalia, but he doesn't ride very often anymore."
- "Then the boys arrived, with their camping paraphernalia, and in such bubbling good spirits that the girls were infected with them, for they had become rather lonesome of late."
- "People such as William James and the Stephensons (with whom he collaborated) may have been the movers and shakers of the early railways, but there was other, less exalted bods who constructed all the paraphernalia—including stations."
- "So she told her what her husband had said and sat with her awhile; but, presently, up came porters, who brought all her clothes and paraphernalia and what not else belonged to her of goods and vessels from her husband’s house and deposited them in that of her mother."
Etymology
Borrowed from Medieval Latin paraphernālia (“goods which a wife brings over and above her dowry”), use as noun (short for paraphernālia bona (“paraphernal goods”)) of neuter plural of paraphernālis, from Late Latin parapherna + Latin -ālis (suffix forming adjectives), from Ancient Greek παράφερνα (parápherna), a compound of παρά (pará, “beside”) + φερνή (phernḗ, “dowry”). In the propertied classes, a dowry was placed under the control of the husband, while the paraphernalia which she brought with her remained the wife’s property.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: παράφερνα
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌpɛɹəfɚˈneɪli.ə/
- British English: /ˌpæɹəfəˈneɪli.ə/