Cheap, showy, or of poor quality; something that looks impressive but is actually fake or inferior, especially cheap jewelry.
From Birmingham, England (historically pronounced 'Brummagem'), which was famous in the 17th-18th centuries for producing cheap, flashy imitation jewelry and counterfeit goods that deceived buyers.
Birmingham got such a reputation for knockoffs that its own dialect pronunciation became slang for 'fake'—it's the ultimate example of a place so associated with counterfeits that its name became the word for fakery itself.
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