"Gimcrack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at Weston was the most prosaic scene in the world, a long esplanade with an asphalt path running its full length, and ugly jerrybuilt houses glaring out upon it, a gimcrack pier with a gingerbread sort of band-stand and glass house at the end;—all that could have been done to ruin nature had been determinedly done there. But you cannot ruin a spring day, nor youth, nor the colour of the ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... house, except poor Amelia, that Rebecca should take her departure, and high and low (always with the one exception) agreed that that event should take place as speedily as possible. Our good child ransacked all her drawers, cupboards, reticules, and gimcrack boxes—passed in review all her gowns, fichus, tags, bobbins, laces, silk stockings, and fallals—selecting this thing and that and the other, to make a little heap for Rebecca. And going to her Papa, that generous British merchant, who had promised to give her as many guineas ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... flat on the top of a huge pile of buildings in Kensington, and it was furnished in a gimcrack way, with more show than real value, and with more color than taste. Every room was of a different hue, with furniture and hangings to match. The drawing-room was pink, the dining-room green, her bedroom blue, the entrance hall yellow, and the extra sleeping apartment used ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... of champagne from a Concord friend whose company is as exhilarating as the sparkling wine he sent us. With the other gifts came a small tin box, about as big as a common round wooden match box. I supposed it to hold some pretty gimcrack, sent as a pleasant parting token of remembrance. It proved to be a most valued daily companion, useful at all times, never more so than when the winds were blowing hard and the ship was struggling with the waves. There must have been ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... cringes; look in thy head, and 'twill appear a foot-ball full of fumes and rotten smoke. Lady, I pity you; you are a handsome and a sweet young Lady, and ought to have a handsom man yok'd t'ye, an understanding too; this is a Gimcrack, that can get nothing but new fashions on you; for say he have a thing shap'd like a child, 'twill either prove a Tumbler ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... It has but two objects of interest (in Persian eyes)—the lighthouse (occasionally lit) and a palace of the Shah, built a few years since as a pied-a-terre for his Majesty on the occasion of his visits to Europe. It is a tawdry gimcrack edifice, painted bright blue, red, and green, in the worst possible taste. The Shah, on returning from Europe last time, is said to have remarked to his ministers on landing at Enzelli, "I have not seen a single building in all Europe to compare ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... knack, n. gimcrack, trinket, toy, plaything, knickknack, kickshaws, gewgaw, bauble; skill, readiness, aptitude, proficiency, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... or "tangram" ordinarily means a toy or gimcrack, or trumpery article. Cf. Wycherley (Plain Dealer, iii. 1), "But go, thou trangram, and carry back those trangrams which thou hast stolen or purloined." Apparently "trangum" here means ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... loser—considerable for me, that is to say. I told my antagonist I should send him the money to-day. He's a kind of man I can't afford to trifle with; and you know the Caballero connection is of too much use to be jeopardised. So I've been thinking, Bess, that if you'd let me have that gimcrack locket my sister gave you, I could raise a tenner on it. Clary can afford to give you plenty of such things, even if it were lost, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... space, and everything, to waste it by Mrs. Grosvenor Green. She had conformed to a law for the necessity of turning round in each room, and had folding-beds in the chambers, but there her subordination had ended, and wherever you might have turned round she had put a gimcrack so that you would knock it over if you did turn. The place was rather pretty and even imposing at first glance, and it took several joint ballots for March and his wife to make sure that with the kitchen there were only six rooms. At every door hung a portiere from large rings on a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells |
