Bric-a-brac is small ornaments of little individual value. A shelf of bric-a-brac.
The word is faintly dismissive and nobody applies it to their own things. A house full of bric-a-brac is the hardest kind of house to clear.
1nounbric-a-bracSmall ornaments of little individual value.
“The stall was all bric-a-brac and one good clock.”
bric-a-brac is an object.
French bric-a-brac, from a phrase meaning at random, whose two halves mean nothing on their own.
French
bric-à-brac — miscellaneous items of little value
English, today
bric-a-brac
Built from
French bric-à-brac (“miscellaneous items of little value”), apparently from à bricq et à bracq (“at random; haphazardly”); bricq and bracq are expressive imitative of the sound of obscure origin.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Antiques & Collecting