tchotchke: M-W's Word of the Day

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The Word of the Day for November 25 is:

tchotchke \CHAHCH-kuh\ noun
: knickknack, trinket

Example sentence:
Upon returning home from his trip to Maine, Jerry ceremoniously placed his new ceramic lobster next to the other tchotchkes on his mantelpiece.

Did you know?
Just as trinkets can dress up your shelves or coffee table, many words for "miscellaneous objects" or "nondescript junk" decorate our language. "Knickknack," "doodad," "gewgaw," and "whatnot" are some of the more common ones. While many such words are of unknown origin, we know that "tchotchke" comes from the Yiddish "tshatshke" of the same meaning, and ultimately from a now-obsolete Polish word, "czaczko." "Tchotchke" is a pretty popular word these days, but it wasn't commonly used in English until the 1970s.

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