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Webster 1913 Edition
Frippery
1.
Coast-off clothes.
[Obs.]
B. Jonson.
2.
Hence: Secondhand finery; cheap and tawdry decoration; affected elegance.
Fond of gauze and French
frippery
. Goldsmith.
The gauzy
frippery
of a French translation. Sir W. Scott.
3.
A place where old clothes are sold.
Shak.
4.
The trade or traffic in old clothes.
Frip′per-y
,Adj.
Trifling; contemptible.
Webster 1828 Edition
Frippery
FRIP'PERY
,Noun.
1.
Old clothes; cast dresses; clothes thrown aside, after wearing. Hence, waste matter; useless things; trifles; as the frippery of wit.2.
The place where old clothes are sold.3.
The trade or traffic in old clothes.Definition 2024
frippery
frippery
English
Noun
frippery (countable and uncountable, plural fripperies)
- Ostentation, as in fancy clothing.
- Useless things; trifles.
- 1892 April, Frederick Law Olmsted, Report by F.L.O., quoted in 2003, Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, New York, N.Y.: Crown Publishing Group, ISBN 978-0-609-60844-9, page 170:
- [Olmsted reiterated his insistence that in Chicago] simplicity and reserve will be practiced and petty effects and frippery avoided.
- 2014 October 21, Oliver Brown, “Oscar Pistorius jailed for five years – sport afforded no protection against his tragic fallibilities: Bladerunner's punishment for killing Reeva Steenkamp is but a frippery when set against the burden that her bereft parents, June and Barry, must carry [print version: No room for sentimentality in this tragedy, 13 September 2014, p. S22]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Sport):
- [Oscar] Pistorius's punishment for killing her [Reeva Steenkamp] that night is but a frippery when set against the burden that her bereft parents, June and Barry, must carry.
- 1892 April, Frederick Law Olmsted, Report by F.L.O., quoted in 2003, Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, New York, N.Y.: Crown Publishing Group, ISBN 978-0-609-60844-9, page 170:
- (obsolete) Cast-off clothes.
- 1598, Ben Jonson, Every Man in His Humour:
- Yet, if thou dost, come over, and but see our frippery; change an old shirt for a whole smock with us...
-
- (obsolete) The trade or traffic in old clothes.
- (obsolete) The place where old clothes are sold.
- 1610, The Tempest, by Shakespeare, act 4 scene 1
- O, ho, monster! we know what belongs to a frippery.
- 1610, The Tempest, by Shakespeare, act 4 scene 1
- Hence: secondhand finery; cheap and tawdry decoration; affected elegance.
- Fond of gauze and French frippery. — Oliver Goldsmith.
- The gauzy frippery of a French translation. — Sir W. Scott.
Translations
Useless things; trifles
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References
- 1897 Universal Dictionary of the English Language, Robert Hunter and Charles Morris, eds., v 2 p 2213. [for entries 2, 3, 4, & 5]
Frippery (Page: 597)