Objects, especially jewelry or money, that are worth a lot of money and are kept because they're precious or important.
From 'valuable' (late 16th century), which comes from Old French 'valoir' meaning 'to be worth.' The suffix '-able' means 'capable of being,' so literally 'things capable of being valued.' The plural form emphasizes a collection of such items.
Pirates and treasure hunters didn't always call them 'valuables'—that word really took off in the 1600s-1700s when increased global trade made people think more systematically about which objects held value across different cultures and markets.
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