gimcrack
Americannoun
adjective
adjective
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of gimcrack
1325–75 for earlier sense; Middle English gib ( e ) crake; compare Middle English gibben to waver (< Old French giber to shake)
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.
Imagine the damage such a salesman might do, stirring up dissatisfaction and unhappiness just to sell us a gimcrack agenda that we’d wish we had never bought.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 30, 2021
To call this tourist fare is merely to say that its appeal is generic and, yes, a bit gimcrack.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2018
Beneath the gimcrack pretext, one simple reason: The court didn’t like the law.
From Slate ● Jun. 30, 2015
With their showy, gimcrack splendour, his novels are the 19th-century equivalent of Hollywood tinsel.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 17, 2013
But the terrors of the swamped car, that snuffling threat of steam ahead–a deep bass uz-z-z!–momentarily made a gimcrack of other things too–of everything but the desperate instinct to get out–free, somehow.
From Pemrose Lorry, Camp Fire Girl by Hornibrook, Isabel Katherine
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.
