And of all the ways in which we who speak English have altered words of other languages the word kickshaw is literally something.
Yes, that is what it meant, “something.”
It began as the French plural, quelque chores, which, especially when used in cookery, and, generally, with a shrug of the shoulders, indicated, “just something dainty; mere trifles.”
By the elite, the pronunciation was que’que choses, which became in English speech, of the seventeenth century, keck shaws.
Our forebears then turned this back into a singular and the permanent pronunciation, kickshaw.
