Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Paraphernalia
/ˌpærəfərˈneɪliə/noun
The assorted equipment and odds and ends belonging to a particular activity.
The Greek roots
παρά
pará
beside, beyond
φερνή
phernḗ
dowry
Literally: “goods beyond the dowry”
The story of the word
In Greek law παράφερνα were the goods a bride brought over and above her dowry. English law kept the category for the clothes and jewels a wife held as her own while everything else she owned passed to her husband on marriage, and lawyers argued cases over which trinkets qualified. Once married women's property acts made the distinction pointless the word floated free, and by the nineteenth century it meant any heap of gear at all.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Medieval Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
metaphorperipheryamphoraeuphoria
In a sentence
He arrived with the full paraphernalia of a serious camper.
The tribunal ruled the pearls were paraphernalia and stayed with the widow.