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A tchotchke ( or ) is a small bric-à-brac or trinket. The word has been used by Jewish-Americans and in the regional speech of New York City and elsewhere since the 1970s. It is borrowed from Yiddish and is ultimately Slavic in origin.
The word may also refer to free promotional items dispensed at trade shows, conventions, and similar commercial events. They can also be sold as cheap in tourist areas, which are sometimes called "tchotchke shops".
A wide variety of spellings exist for the English usage of the term, such as tchatchke, tshotshke, tshatshke, tchachke, tchotchka, tchatchka, chachke, tsotchke, chotski, and chochke; the standard Yiddish transliteration is tsatske or tshatshke. In YIVO standard orthography, it is spelled טשאַטשקע. In Modern Hebrew it is often spelled rtl=yes, , with a tsade instead of teth-shin, as in Yiddish. A Hebrew variant is צ׳אצ׳קע, using צ (tsade) with a geresh to represent the sound .
A common confusion is between the terms tchotchke and tsatske or rather tsatskele, with the diminutive ending -le. Both terms have the same Slavic root. Tchotchke usually references trinkets, while tsatskele is more likely to mean a young girl or woman who uses her charms to reach her goals. Being Yiddish, the meaning can change by the use of gestures and a change in tone, so that tsatskele can become the favorite child.
Leo Rosten, author of The Joys of Yiddish, also documents a sense of tchotchke as meaning a young girl, a "pretty young thing", as well as noting pejorative usage ("a loose or kept woman"; "a sexy but brainless broad"). Illustrated, reprint edition.
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