Brewer's: Frippery

Rubbish of a tawdry character; worthless finery; foolish levity. A friperer or fripperer is one who deals in frippery, either to sell or clean old clothes. (French, friperie, old clothes and cast-off furniture.)

“We know what belongs to a frippery.”

Shakespeare: Tempest iv. 1.

Old clothes, cast dresses, tattered rags, Whose works are e'en the frippery of wit.

Ben Jonson.

Frippery properly means rags and all sorts of odds and ends. French, fripe (a rag), friperie (old clothes and furniture), fripier (a broker of old clothes, etc.). Applied to pastry. Eugène Grandet says, “En Anjou la `frippe' exprime l'accompagnement du pain, depuis le beurre plus distinguée des frippes.”

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