Bawble

/ˈbɔːbəl/ noun

Definition

An ornament, trinket, or bauble; something of little value or importance.

Etymology

A dialectal or archaic variant spelling of 'bauble,' which comes from Old French 'baubel' or 'babel,' possibly imitating the sound of a clinking toy. The root may relate to Germanic words for shaking or jingling objects.

Kelly Says

Bawble is one of those delicious obsolete spellings that shows English before standardization—it's essentially the same word as 'bauble' but spelled phonetically the way people actually pronounced it in certain regions, then the spelling just crystallized differently in other places.

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