frippery

noun /ˈfɹɪpəɹi/

1. Ostentation, as in fancy clothing.

   countable, uncountable

   Young women of such birth, living in a quiet country-house, and attending a village church hardly larger than a parlor, naturally regarded frippery as the ambition of a huckster’s daughter.

2. Useless things; trifles.

   countable, uncountable

   [Olmsted reiterated his insistence that in Chicago] simplicity and reserve will be practiced and petty effects and frippery avoided.

3. Cast-off clothes.

   countable, obsolete, uncountable

   If thou doſt, come ouer, and but ſee our fripperie: change an olde ſhirt, for a whole ſmocke, with vs.

4. The trade or traffic in old clothes.

   countable, obsolete, uncountable

Where it comes from

From French friperie, from Old French fripier (“to rub up and down, to wear into rags”). Compare fripper.

Adapted from the Wiktionary entry frippery (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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