Tchotchke

Pronunciation

Alternative forms

• tsatske, chotchke, chachka, tshatshke

Origin

First attested in American English in 1964, from Yiddish טשאַטשקע (tshatshke, "trinket"), from obsolete Polish czaczko; compare Russian цацка

“tchotchke” in the Online Etymology Dictionary (November 2001) of Douglas Harper

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Full definition of tchotchke

Noun

1. A small, decorative item or souvenir, usually of no particular value.
• 1998 Apr, Mark Rakatansky, A/Partments, in Assemblage 35, page 58, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0889-3012%28199804%290%3A35%3C48%3AA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-TI am a child of modernism – ... As such I have inherited a distrust of the tchotchke, which I have still – ...
• 1999 Aug 8, Jesse McKinley, The Avant-Garde: Follow That Backpack, in The New York Times, page 5.16With limited cash and a thirst for uncommon sights, backpackers have pushed into challenging territory well before the big-money resorts or tchotchke merchants.
• 2006, Jack Sullivan, Hitchcock's Music, Yale University Press, page 244Once again Hitchcock overturned the convention that music must remain subliminally in the background of a film: ... in its quiet moments, it roams grimly wherever it pleases, investing the most banal images—a toy, ... a tchotchke of folding hands—with dread.
2. (obsolete) A bimbo.