Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Gimcrack |
GimcrackAdjective1. Tastelessly showy; "a flash car"; "a flashy ring"; "garish colors"; "a gaudy costume"; "loud sport shirts"; "a meretricious yet stylish book"; "tawdry ornaments". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "gimcrack" was first used: 1618. (references) |
Etymology: Gimcrack \Gim"crack`\, noun. [Old English expression, spruce and pert pretender, also, spruce girl, probably from gim crack lad, boaster.]. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Slang in 1811 | GIMCRACK, or JIMCRACK. A spruce wench; a gimcrack also means a person who has a turn for mechanical contrivances. Source: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Synonyms: GimcrackSynonyms: brassy (adj), cheap (adj), flash (adj), flashy (adj), garish (adj), gaudy (adj), loud (adj), meretricious (adj), tacky (adj), tatty (adj), tawdry (adj), trashy (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Brittleness | Adjective: brittle, brash, breakable, weak, frangible, fragile, frail, gimcrack, shivery, fissile; splitting. Verb: lacerable, splintery, crisp, crimp, short, brittle as glass. |
Ornament | Finery, frippery, gewgaw, gimcrack, tinsel, spangle, clinquant, pinchbeck, paste; excess of ornament; (vulgarity); gaud, pride. |
Ridiculousness | Drollish; seriocomic, tragicomic; gimcrack, contemptible; (unimportant); doggerel; ironical; (derisive); risible. |
Unimportance | Toy, plaything, popgun, paper pellet, gimcrack, gewgaw, bauble, trinket, bagatelle, Rickshaw, knickknack, whim-wham, trifle, " trifles light as air "; yankee notions. |
Poor, paltry, pitiful; contemptible; (contempt); sorry, mean, meager, shabby, miserable, wretched, vile, scrubby, scrannel, weedy, scurvy, putid, beggarly, worthless, twopennyhalfpenny, cheap, trashy, catchpenny, gimcrack, trumpery; one-horse. not worth the pains, not worth while, not worth mentioning, not worth speaking of, not worth a thought, not worth a curse, not worth a straw; Noun: beneath notice, unworthy of notice, beneath regard, unworthy of regard, beneath consideration, unworthy of consideration; de lana caprina; vain; (useless). | |
Weakness | Frail, fragile, flimsy, unsubstantial, insubstantial, gimcrack, gingerbread; rickety, creaky, creaking, cranky; craichy; drooping, tottering; Verb:. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Gimcrack |
| English words defined with "gimcrack": Gimmor ♦ Jimcrack ♦ Whimwham. (references) |
| "Gimcrack" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 72.73% of the time. "Gimcrack" is used about 11 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 72.73% | 8 | 124,375 |
| Noun (proper) | 18.18% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 9.09% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 11 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
gimcrack | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "gimcrack"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | xhingël (catchpenny, curio, gewgaw, knick knack, Nick nack, Spangle, tinsel, trinket). (various references) | |
Arabic | البهرج حلية تافهة. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | евтино украшение, евтини мебели, дрънкулка (bauble, doohickey, falderal, gaud, knick knack, trinket). (various references) | |
Czech | bezcenný (frippery, nugatory, trashy, trifling, valueless, worthless). (various references) | |
French | de pacotille, de camelote. (various references) | |
German | minderwertig (base, cheap, inferior, low, low class, low quality, poor, poor quality, scraggy, shoddy, substandard, unwholesome), billig (cheap, cheaply, fair, feeble, inexpensive, just, low, low-cost, meet, petty, proper, reasonable, righteous, shabby, tacky, tinny). (various references) | |
Greek | μπιχλιμπίδι (bauble, kickshaw, knick knack, trinket). (various references) | |
Hungarian | csiricsáré (flash, flashy, gingerbread, showy, tacky, tawdry), ócska áru. (various references) | |
Italian | dozzinale (cheap, cheapish, common, ordinary), cianfrusaglia (gimcrackery, knick-knacks). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | imcrackgay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | bagagem de mão (carry on luggage), artigo mal-acabado. (various references) | |
Romanian | zorzoanã (gaud, gewgaw), fãcut de mântuialã, cu aspect frumos dar fãrã valoare. (various references) | |
Russian | мишура (frippery, gewgaw, knick-knackery, ostentation, tinsel, trumpery). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | tričarija (bauble, knick knack, Nick nack, nicknack, trifle, trinket). (various references) | |
Spanish | de mala calidad (trashy). (various references) | |
Swedish | billig och grann. (various references) | |
Thai | ซึ่งไม่มีราคาค่างว". (various references) | |
Turkish | zımbırtı (doing, doings, doodad, doohickey, gadget, thingumabob, thingumajig, thingummy, whosit), değersiz süs (falderal, frippery, trinket), cici bici (notions), adi şey. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | мішурний (gewgaw, tinsel, trumpery). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | vô giá trị; loè loẹt, rẻ tiền (brummagem, cheap, penny-a-line), đ" vật vô giá trị, đ" trang trí loè loẹt (gaud), đ" lặt vặt (knick-knack). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Old French | 900-1400 | giber. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "gimcrack": gimcrackeries, gimcrackery, gimcracks. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-c-g-i-k-m-r" | |
-2 letters: karmic. | |
-3 letters: acmic, cigar, circa, crack, crick, gamic, magic, micra, mikra. | |
-4 letters: amir, cark, crag, cram, gram, grim, kami, mack, magi, mair, marc, mark, mica, mick, mirk, rack, ragi, raki, rami, rick. | |
-5 letters: aim, air, ami, arc, ark, arm, cam, car, cig, gam, gar, ick, irk, kir, mac, mag, mar, mig, mir, rag, ram. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-c-g-i-k-m-r" | |
+1 letter: gimcracks. | |
+3 letters: gimcrackery. | |
+4 letters: checkmarking. | |
+5 letters: gimcrackeries. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage Frequency | 5. Expressions: Internet 6. Translations: Modern 7. Translations: Ancient 8. Derivations | 9. Anagrams 10. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
