bauble

noun

Etymology: From Middle English bable, babel, babull, babulle, from Old French babel, baubel (“trinket, child's toy”), most likely a reduplication of bel, ultimately from Latin bellus (“pretty”).

1. A cheap showy ornament or piece of jewellery; a gewgaw.

   “[…] as to the bauble on which the chief proof rests, if she had earnestly desired it, I should have willingly given it to her, so much do I esteem and value her.”

   “Have none before or after him staked all their treasure of life, as a savage does his land and possessions against a draught of the fair-skins’ fire-water, or a couple of bauble eyes?”

2. Anything trivial and worthless.

   “His hind quarters were likewise short, and not racinglike, and taken as a specimen of the horse, he was a mere bauble when looked at by the side of an English race-horse, much less a hunter.”

3. A small shiny spherical decoration, commonly put on Christmas trees.
4. A club or sceptre carried by a jester.