Contextualizebeta

bauble

noun
/ˈbɔːbəɫ/UK/ˈbɒbəɫ//ˈbɔbəl/US

Etymology

From Middle English bable, babel, babull, babulle, from Old French babel, baubel (“trinket, child's toy”), most likely a reduplication of bel, ultimately from Latin bellus (“pretty”).

  1. derived from bellus — “pretty”
  2. derived from babel
  3. inherited from bable

Definitions

  1. A cheap showy ornament or piece of jewellery

    A cheap showy ornament or piece of jewellery; a gewgaw.

    • […] as to the bauble on which the chief proof rests, if she had earnestly desired it, I should have willingly given it to her, so much do I esteem and value her.
    • Have none before or after him staked all their treasure of life, as a savage does his land and possessions against a draught of the fair-skins’ fire-water, or a couple of bauble eyes?
    • Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade.

  2. Anything trivial and worthless.

    • His hind quarters were likewise short, and not racinglike, and taken as a specimen of the horse, he was a mere bauble when looked at by the side of an English race-horse, much less a hunter.

  3. A small shiny spherical decoration, commonly put on Christmas trees.

  4. ›+ 1 more definition

    1. A club or sceptre carried by a jester.

The neighborhood

Derived

baublery

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for bauble. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA