frippery
Americannoun
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finery in dress, especially when showy, gaudy, or the like.
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empty display; ostentation.
-
gewgaws; trifles.
noun
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ornate or showy clothing or adornment
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showiness; ostentation
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unimportant considerations; trifles; trivia
Etymology
Origin of frippery
1560–70; < French friperie, Old French freperie, equivalent to frepe rag + -erie -ery
Explanation
Frippery is something showy but trivial. You might think you need a feather boa, but your sister might say it’s just frippery. Frippery comes from the French word friperie for "old clothes,” and originally, frippery referred to old, trashy and maybe even tawdry clothes. From there, the word spread to include other kinds of things that aren't worth much. Often, frippery refers to nonsense, or language that is empty and just a lot of hot air. Use this word when you want to say something is showy but ultimately empty of value.
Vocabulary lists containing frippery
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
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"The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" by Katherine Anne Porter
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The Devil in the White City
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
No one in the film comments on any of the frippery.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 27, 2025
Brushing ahead all that geeky frippery, though, and what’s plainest about that scene is how unsettling it is.
From Salon • Jan. 18, 2025
Yet in the end, amid all the fun and frippery, the one garment that most lingered was perhaps the least elaborate, least formal of all: the T-shirt worn by Billie Eilish for her performance.
From New York Times • Apr. 4, 2022
Fans repaid her with a fierce devotion, showing up to her readings in their finest vampiric frippery.
From Washington Post • Dec. 13, 2021
He reiterated his insistence that in Chicago “simplicity and reserve will be practiced and petty effects and frippery avoided.”
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
