Written also without the accent, and as one word. [Fr.; said by Littré to be formed after the phr. de bric et de broc ‘by hook or by crook.’] Old curiosities of artistic character, knick-knacks, antiquarian odds-and-ends, such as old furniture, plate, china, fans, statuettes, and the like.
1862. Thackeray, Philip, I. 299. All the valuables of the house, including, perhaps, J. J.’s bricabrac, cabinets, china, and so forth.
1873. Miss Braddon, Str. World, I. iv. 67. That bric-a-brac upon which the Bellingham race had squandered a small fortune.
1885. Athenæum, 7 March, 308/2. Some syndicate, growing tired of bric-à-brac, may turn its wasted enthusiasm to buying old English books for the nation.
b. attrib., as in bric-à-brac man, shop.
1840. Thackeray, Paris Sk. Bk. (1872), 243. The palace of Versailles has been turned into a bricabrac shop.
1876. Geo. Eliot, Dan. Der., lxvii. (D.). Haven’t an affair in the world … except a quarrel with a bric-a-brac man.
c. quasi-adj. (humorous.)
1872. Geo. Eliot, Middlem., xliii. 13. I think he is a good fellow; rather miscellaneous and bric-à-brac,—but likable.
Hence Brick-a-bracker, Bric-a-brackery. (colloq. or humorous.)
1880. ‘Mark Twain,’ Tramp Abroad, I. 180. I am content to be a bric-a-bracker. Ibid., I. 179. It is the failing of the true … devotee in any department of bric-a-brackery.
