The Chutzpah Chronicles

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tchotchke

Yiddish

also: tsatske

a small trinket or knickknack

A small trinket, the kind of thing that accumulates on a shelf without anyone remembering buying it. Souvenir magnets, conference pens, that ceramic dreidel from a cousin's bar mitzvah, all tchotchkes. Nobody calls something they actually value a tchotchke.