Paraphernalia

Paraphernalia

Noun (plural or uncountable) · /ˌpær.ə.fəˈneɪ.li.ə/

Definition

(1) Miscellaneous articles, especially the equipment needed for a particular activity — all the paraphernalia of camping, the paraphernalia of a film set. (2) (Law, historical) the personal property belonging to a married woman that she was legally entitled to keep as her own, distinct from her dowry — one of the few areas of historical English law in which a married woman had any separate legal personhood.

Origin

From Medieval Latin paraphernalia, from Latin paraphernalia bona — from Greek parapherna — from para (beside, beyond) + pherne (a woman's dowry, from pherein, to bring). Paraphernalia therefore originally meaning the goods brought beside the dowry — the personal property of a married woman beyond the formal dowry transfer. The legal term being one of the few acknowledgements in pre-modern law of a married woman's separate legal existence. The modern sense of miscellaneous equipment and accessories developing from the seventeenth century.