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Word of the Day Archive
Thursday April 26, 2001

bricolage \bree-koh-LAHZH; brih-\, noun:
Construction or something constructed by using whatever materials happen to be available.

The Internet is a global bricolage, lashing together unthinkable complexities of miscellaneous computers with temporary lengths of phone line and fiber optic, bits of Ethernet cable and strings of code.
-- Bernard Sharratt, "Only Connected", New York Times, December 17, 1995

Cooking with leftovers was bricolage--a dialogue between the cook and the available materials.
-- Susan Strasser, Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash

I point out to my students that no one ever really reads Hamlet for the first time now; we've heard it all before in bits and pieces, cultural bricolage.
-- Marjorie Garber, "Back to Whose Basics?", New York Times, October 29, 1995

Bricolage comes from the French, from bricole, "trifle; small job."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for bricolage

 

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