gaud

Definitions

1. A cheap showy trinket
2. trick; jest; sport
   obsolete
3. deceit; fraud; artifice
   obsolete

Equivalents

Examples

“an idle gaud”

“A Libyan longing took us, and we would have⟳ chosen, if we could, to bear⟳ a strand of grotesque beads, or a handful of brazen gauds, and traffic them for some sable maid with crisp locks, whom, uncoffling from the captive train⟳ beside the desert, we should make⟳ to do our general housework forever, through the right of lawful purchase⟳.”

“Dalmeny lent me red tabs, Evans his brass hat; so that I had the gauds of my appointment in the ceremony of the Jaffa gate, which for me was the supreme moment of the war.”

“Her secrets: old featherfans, tasselled dancecards, powdered with musk, a gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer.”

CEFR level