paraphernalia

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a collection of miscellaneous equipment or objects used for a particular activity

   The doctor packed the instruments, drugs, and other paraphernalia of his trade.

2. 2
   noun

   historically, a married woman's personal property apart from her dowry

   The settlement specified which jewels would remain her paraphernalia after marriage.

Simplified etymology

Paraphernalia derives from Greek parapherna, “property apart from a dowry.” In law it denoted a married woman’s personal belongings, such as clothes and jewellery, which remained hers after her husband’s death; outside legal use it broadened to mean miscellaneous possessions and, by the mid-18th century, the equipment associated with an activity.

From Medieval Latin paraphernalia bona, "goods beyond the dowry," based on Greek parapherna, from para- ("beside, beyond") + pherne ("dowry"). The legal plural broadened in English from a wife's separate belongings to miscellaneous possessions and then to equipment for an activity.

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