gimcrack
adjective

- showy but cheap or badly made

- attractive on the surface but badly made and of no real or permanent value

-  showy but cheap and useless

noun

- a cheap showy trifle or gadget

Oxford Languages, Cambridge English Dictionary, Collins Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

"Gimcrack" traces back to Middle English around 1360, appearing in accounts as gibecrake, likely naming a decorative inlay or ornament on wooden furniture. This may derive from Old French giber, meaning to shake or rattle, combined with Middle English crak, a sharp cracking sound, evoking something fragile that clatters easily.

By the 1610s, it shifted to mean a showy trifle or knickknack of little worth, and as an adjective, cheap or flimsy. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it also described people skilled in making such gadgets.

The term then evolved to capture ornate but worthless items, like costume jewelry or poorly built novelties, reflecting a disdain for superficial flash over substance.

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SYNONYMS

ADJECTIVES:

bauble, bibelot, brassy, cheap, coarse, common, falderal, flashy, folderal, frippery, garish, gaudy, gewgaw, GIMCRACK, gimcrackery, glitzy, inferior, jerry-built, kickshaw, kitschy, knickknack, loud, lousy, mediocre, meretricious, nickel-and-dime, ornament, poor, rotten, rubbishy, shoddy, showy, tacky, tatty, tawdry, terrible, thingamajig, toy, trinket, trash, trashy, trifle, trumpery, worthless

NOUNS:

bling, cheap knockoff, dollar store junk, dust catcher, flashy trash, flimsy gadget, gaudy trifle, GIMCRACK souvenir, junky bauble, kitschy doodad, loud frippery, low-rent ornament, meretricious bauble, nickel-dime novelty, poor man's jewel, rubbishy gewgaw, shoddy knickknack, tacky tchotchke, tawdry trinket, trashy doodad, worthless frippery

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SMUGGLE
 OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“My friend can’t resist buying GIMCRACK offers in our local 1-euro shop.”

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P L E A S E   S U P P O R T   O W A D