Meaning of bric-a-brac | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Small ornaments and other miscellaneous display items of little value.
   also, attributive, uncountable, usually
2. Any collection containing a variety of miscellaneous items; a hodgepodge, an olio.
   also, attributive, broadly, uncountable, usually

Equivalents

Examples

“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.”

“Yes: I think⟳ he is a good fellow: rather miscellaneous and bric-à-brac, but likable.”

“Haven't an affair in the world, […] except a quarrel with a bric-à-brac man.”

“The papier mâché desk he passed tolerantly as bric-à-brac, but the china-cabinet was dismissed with contempt.”

CEFR level