knick-knack

plural knick-knacks · alternative knickknack · alternative nick-nack · alternative nicknack

1. A small ornament or other object of minor value.

   1985, Herbert Kretzmer, "Master of the House" (song) in Les Misérables Picking up their knick-knacks when they can't see straight

   5 more examples

   Our Cutler, who had now a great Stock of things of his Handy-work, gave them some little Knick Knacks, as Plates of Silver and of Iron, cut Diamond Fashion, and cut into Hearts and into Rings, and they were mightily pleased.

   1720, [Daniel Defoe], The Life, Adventures, and Pyracies, of the Famous Captain Singleton, London: […] J[ohn] Brotherton, […], J[ohn] Graves […], A[nne] Dodd, […], and T[homas] Warner, […], →OCLC, page 89

   But there was no hitch in the conversation, nevertheless; for one gentleman, who travelled in the perfumery line, exhibited an interesting nick-nack, in the way of a remarkable cake of shaving soap, which he had lately met with in Germany […]

   1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, chapter 9, in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, →OCLC, page 110

   She was seemingly poetical, and he offered her a choice of two editions of the British poets, which she pretended to want badly. He said, ‘Which of them would you like best for me to send?’ She said, ‘A pair of the prettiest earrings in Bond Street, if you don’t mind, would be nicer than either.’ […] “You, Miss Swancourt, would not, under such circumstances, have preferred the nicknacks?”

   1873, Thomas Hardy, chapter XIX, in A Pair of Blue Eyes

   The room was small, and densely filled with furniture; it gave an impression of faded silk and little statuettes which might totter if one moved. Rosier got up and wandered about with his careful tread, bending over the tables charged with knick-knacks and the cushions embossed with princely arms.

   1881, Henry James, Jr., chapter XXXVI, in The Portrait of a Lady, New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC, page 313

   Is art anything that we have reason to value? Or is it a mere adornment of life which we can do without—a mere knick-knack for Dame Civilization to hang about her wrinkled neck in order to dazzle her neighbours?

   1929, Frederick Philip Grove, “The Aim of Art”, in It Needs to Be Said