Trappings are the outward signs that go with a position. The trappings of office, all the trappings, trappings of wealth.
The word is faintly dismissive: trappings are what surrounds the thing rather than the thing itself, so somebody with the trappings of power may have none of it. It is always plural in this sense. Note that trappings were originally the decorated cloths on a horse, which is exactly the image.
1nountrappingsThe outward signs that go with a position.
“He enjoyed the trappings of power: the big car, the driver and the private jet.”
trappings is outward signs.
From trapping, the ornamental cloth on a horse, from an Old French word for cloth. The figurative sense followed.
From trapping.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA