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Webster 1913 Edition


Frippery

Frip′per-y

,
Noun.
[F.
friperie
, fr.
fruper
. See
Fripper
.]
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)

  1. Ostentation, as in fancy clothing.
  2. 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.
  3. (obsolete) Cast-off clothes.
  4. (obsolete) The trade or traffic in old clothes.
  5. (obsolete) The place where old clothes are sold.
  6. 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

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)