bric-à-brac

bric-à-brac (usually uncountable, plural bric-à-bracs)

1. Alternative form of bric-a-brac.
   • 1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XLIII, in Middlemarch […], volume III, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book V, page 13:

     Yes: I think he is a good fellow: rather miscellaneous and bric-à-brac, but likable.

   • 1876, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter LXVII, in Daniel Deronda, volume IV, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book VIII (Fruit and Seed), page 314:

     Haven't an affair in the world, […] except a quarrel with a bric-à-brac man.

   • 1950, Norman Lindsay, Dust or Polish?, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 75:

     The papier mâché desk he passed tolerantly as bric-à-brac, but the china-cabinet was dismissed with contempt.

Apparently from à bricq et à bracq (“at random; haphazardly”); bricq and bracq are expressive onomatopoeias of obscure origin; possibly from Germanic. Compare bricolage. First attested in the c. 1500s.

• IPA^(key): /bʁi.ka.bʁak/

• Audio (Lyon):

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bric-à-brac m (uncountable)

1. miscellaneous items, bric-a-brac
2. storeroom

   Synonym: débarras

• → English: bric-a-brac
• → Portuguese: bricabraque

• “bric-à-brac”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Unadapted borrowing from French bric-à-brac.

bric-à-brac n (uncountable)

1. bric-a-brac shop