Tchotchkes and memorabilia at Shopsin's edited

A tchotchke ( , ) is a small

bric-à-brac Bric-à-brac () or bric-a-brac (from French), first used in the Victorian era, around 1840, refers to lesser objets d'art forming collections of curios. The French phrase is now obsolete, dating from the 16th century, then meaning "at random, ...

or miscellaneous item. The word has long been used by

Jewish-Americans American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora Je ...

and in the regional speech of New York City and elsewhere. It is borrowed from Yiddish and is ultimately Slavic in origin. The word may also refer to free promotional items dispensed at trade shows, conventions, and similar commercial events. They can also be sold as cheap souvenirs in tourist areas, which are sometimes called "tchotchke shops".

Spelling

A wide variety of spellings exist for the English usage of the term, e.g., ''tshotshke'', ''tshatshke'', ''tchachke'', ''tchotchka'', ''tchatchka'', ''chachke'', ''tsotchke'', ''chotski'', or ''chochke''; the standard

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...

is ''tsatske'' or ''tshatshke''. In YIVO standard orthography, it is spelled טשאַטשקע. In Israeli Hebrew it is often spelled , , with a

tsade Tsade (also spelled , , , , tzadi, sadhe, tzaddik) is the eighteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ṣādē , Hebrew ṣādi , Aramaic ṣāḏē , Syriac ṣāḏē ܨ, Ge'ez ṣädäy ጸ, and Arabic . Its oldest phone ...

instead of

teth Teth, also written as or Tet, is the ninth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Ṭēt , Hebrew Tēt , Aramaic Ṭēth , Syriac Ṭēṯ ܛ, and Arabic . It is the 16th letter of the modern Arabic alphabet. The Persian ṭa ...

- shin, as in Yiddish. A Hebrew variant is צ׳אצ׳קע, using צ (

) with a geresh to represent the sound .

Alternative meanings and context

Depending on context, the term has a connotation of worthlessness or disposability as well as tackiness. A common confusion is between the terms ''tchotchke'' and ''tsatske'' or rather ''tsatskele'', with the diminutive ending -le. Both terms have the same Slavic root, but the tch- version stems from Russian, while the ts- originates in Polish. ''Tchotchke'' usually references trinkets, while ''tsatskele'' is more likely to mean a young girl or woman who uses her charms in order to reach her goals. Being Yiddish, the meaning can change by the use of gestures and a change in tone, so that ''tsatskele'' can become the favorite child.

Leo Rosten Leo Calvin Rosten (Yiddish: ; April 11, 1908 – February 19, 1997) was an American humorist in the fields of scriptwriting, storywriting, journalism, and Yiddish lexicography. Early life Rosten was born into a Yiddish-speaking family in Łód ...

, author of ''

The Joys of Yiddish ''The Joys of Yiddish'' is a book containing a lexicon of common words and phrases of Yinglish—i.e., words originating in the Yiddish language that had become known to speakers of American English due to the influence of American Ashkenazi J ...

'', combines the two main meanings and gives an alternative sense of ''tchotchke'' as meaning a desirable young girl, a "pretty young thing". Less flatteringly, the term could be construed as a more dismissive synonym for "

bimbo Bimbo is slang for a conventionally attractive, sexualized, naive, and unintelligent woman. The term was originally used in the United States as early as 1919 for an unintelligent or brutish man. As of the early 21st century, the "stereotypic ...

", or "

slut ''Slut (archaic: slattern)'' is an English-language term for a person, usually a woman or girl, who is considered to have loose sexual morals or who is sexually promiscuous. It is usually used as an insult, sexual slur or offensive term of d ...

Etymology

The word ''tchotchke'' derives from a Slavic word for "trinket" ( uk, цяцька, tsjats'ka ; pl, cacko , plural ; sk, čačkaJ. Kačala et al.
''Short Dictionary of Slovak Language''
Veda, 2003. (meaning: cheap decorative thing, trinket) ; be, цацка ; russian: цацки, tsatski ), adapted to

singular .

References

External links

{{Wiktionary, tchotchke
Tchotchke (n.)
on ''Online Etymology Dictionary''

on ''World Wide Words'' Yiddish words and phrases Slang terms for women Memorabilia

Spelling

Alternative meanings and context

Etymology

See also

References

External links