gewgaw

Definitions

  • WordNet 3.6
    • n gewgaw cheap showy jewelry or ornament on clothing
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Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
    • n Gewgaw A showy trifle; a toy; a splendid plaything; a pretty but worthless bauble. "A heavy gewgaw called a crown."
    • a Gewgaw Showy; unreal; pretentious. "Seeing his gewgaw castle shine."
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Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
    • n gewgaw A showy trifle; a pretty thing of little worth; a toy; a bauble; a gaudy plaything or ornament.
    • n gewgaw A pipe or flute.
    • n gewgaw A Jew′ s-harp.
    • gewgaw Showy, without substantial use or worth.
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Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
    • n Gewgaw gū′gaw a toy: a bauble
    • adj Gewgaw showy without value
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Etymology

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
OE. gigawe, gugawe, gewgaude, prob. the same word as OE. givegove, gewgaw, apparently a reduplicated form fr. AS. gifan, to give; cf. also F. joujou, plaything, and E. gaud, (n.) See Give, and cf. Giffgaff

Usage

In literature:

And now, do you wish to adorn your pretty self with any of these gewgaws?
"Dick Leslie's Luck" by Harry Collingwood
The warehouses were strictly closed; and a few booths, with trifling gewgaws, were alone to be seen.
"A Tramp's Wallet stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France" by William Duthie
For what, after all, do these coronation halls and gewgaws amount to?
"The Land of Thor" by J. Ross Browne
It is a new fashion, and I said when thou wert old enough for rings and gewgaws there is all thy mother's.
"A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia" by Amanda Minnie Douglas
What did English people want with banners and such-like gewgaws?
"Ghetto Comedies" by Israel Zangwill
Have I not misrepresented my gewgaws as the atheist misrepresents the truth?
"The Book of Khalid" by Ameen Rihani
Her money was running short, and that morning in a bazaar she had seen all kinds of pretty gewgaws.
"Their Son; The Necklace" by Eduardo Zamacois
I'll put this gewgaw on her in a jiffy, and that'll be the end of it!
"Belford's Magazine, Volume II, No. 8, January, 1889" by Various
She sat down and spread the gewgaws out before her on the dresser.
"Frances of the Ranges" by Amy Bell Marlowe
Gravelines was a poor place, but Charles had other ways of influencing people than by piling up gewgaws before them.
"The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History" by Martin Hume
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