different between bauble vs gimcrack

English

Etymology

From Middle English bable, babel, babull, babulle, from Old French babel, baubel (“trinket, child's toy”), most likely a reduplication of bel, ultimately from Latin bellus (“pretty”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): [?b??b??]
• (Scots) IPA^(key): [?b?b??]
• (US) IPA^(key): /?b?b?l/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /?b?b?l/
• (US)
• Rhymes: -??b?l
• Homophone: bobble (in accents with the cot-caught merger)

Noun

bauble (plural baubles)

1. A cheap showy ornament piece of jewellery; a gewgaw.
   • 1818, Mary W. Shelley, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, Chapter 8

     as to the bauble on which the chief proof rests, if she had earnestly desired it, I should have willingly given it to her, so much do I esteem and value her.

   • 1977, Jimmy Webb, "Highwayman" (song):

     Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade.

2. A club or sceptre carried by a jester.
3. A small shiny spherical decoration, commonly put on Christmas trees.

Synonyms

• (showy ornament): See also: Thesaurus:trinket

Translations

Further reading

• bauble on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• bauble in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Anagrams

• bubale

English

Alternative forms

• jimcrack

Etymology

Unknown

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?d???mk?æk/

Adjective

gimcrack (not comparable)

1. Showy but of poor quality; worthless.

Noun

gimcrack (plural gimcracks)

1. Something showy but worthless; a gimmick or bauble.
   • 1847–1848, William Thackeray, Vanity Fair:

     […] he came home to find […] honest Swartz in her favourite amber-coloured satin, with turquoise bracelets, countless rings, flowers, feathers, and all sorts of tags and gimcracks, about as elegantly decorated as a she chimney-sweep on May-day.

Derived terms

• gimcrackery

Verb

gimcrack (third-person singular simple present gimcracks, present participle gimcracking, simple past and past participle gimcracked)

1. (transitive) To put together quickly and without much care; to bodge.
2. (transitive) To embellish with gimcracks.