Fangle

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A silly, showy new fashion or gadget that is valued mainly for being recent rather than for any real worth
2. Something trivial and newly devised, a flashy novelty or contrivance favoured for its novelty alone
3. A foolish innovation or ornament, a passing craze that people adopt simply because it is the latest thing

Etymology: Fangle is a word that was never really meant to stand alone. It emerged in English as a back-formation: people saw "newfangled" and, reading it as "new" plus a noun, split off a "fangle" that had never existed on its own. The adjective "newfangled" meant "fond of novelty" or "eager for new things," and the noun was invented to fit it, so the word began as a shadow of its own derivative. The older roots are more sturdy. Old English had an adjective "fangol" or "fangel," meaning "inclined to take," built from the verb "fōn," "to take, seize." That same root gave Middle English "fangen," "to catch," which survives in modern German as "fangen," meaning the same. The English verb "fangle," meaning to take up or grasp at something, grew from this adjective in Middle English. So the word's deep meaning is about grasping and seizing, and the sense of novelty came later through the compound.