Gimcrack

/ˈd͡ʒɪmkɹæk/ · adjective

Meaning

Showy but of poor quality; worthless..

Definitions by Sense

1. Showy but of poor quality; worthless.
2. Something showy but worthless; a bauble or gimmick.
3. (transitive) To put together quickly and without much care; to bodge.
4. (transitive) To embellish with gimcracks.

Example Sentences

For years past this branch of art-manufacture had been entrusted to those whose taste, if it may be called taste at all, can be no more referred to correct principles of design than the gimcrack decorations of a wedding-cake could be tested by any standard of sculpturesque beauty.

It was cocking her up with gimcrack notions about ladies till she'd be ashamed to look at her own hands after she had done a day's work with them.

'The Rape of the Lock' was 'gimcrack,' if you care to call it so; but it was a delicate brilliant work; and so, I repeat, was Maltby's 'Ariel'.

“He scribbled something on a message pad, tore, folded, gave” and “ ‘G-Gay?’ puzzled Bev” are fair examples of Mr. Burgess’s gimcrack contortions.

The movie burnishes the image of this visionary C.E.O. [Steve Jobs] even as it tries to peek behind the curtain at the gimcrack machinery of omnipotence.

[H]er miſlike of my Dreſs confirms me, this muſt be ſome levvd London Gimcrack, ſome Play-houſe haunting Couſin; […]

[…] Lord Orville, […] changed the ſubject to Cox's Muſeum, and aſked vvhat he thought of it? "Think!—" ſaid he, "vvhy I think as hovv it i'n't vvorth thinking about. I like no ſuch jem cracks. It is only fit, in my mind, for monkeys,—though, for aught I knovv, they too might turn up their noſes at it."

[…] he came home to find […] honest Swartz in her favourite amber-coloured satin, with turquoise bracelets, countless rings, flowers, feathers, and all sorts of tags and gimcracks, about as elegantly decorated as a she chimney-sweep on May-day.

Synonyms for gimcrack

Antonyms for gimcrack

Related Words

Word Forms

• jimcrack
• gimcracks
• gimcracking
• gimcracked

Usage Notes

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