bricolage means construction using whatever materials were available at the time.
bricolage is pronounced /ˌbɹi.kəʊˈlɑːʒ/.
Why “bricolage” is a great word
The construction or creation of something from a diverse range of available materials, objects, or ideas. From French bricolage, from bricoler ("to tinker, putter about"). First used in its modern anthropological and artistic sense in English circa 1960, notably by Claude Lévi-Strauss. Unlike "craftsmanship" (implying skilled, planned work with dedicated tools) or "synthesis" (suggesting a seamless, unified whole), bricolage celebrates the ad-hoc assemblage of the heterogeneous and the found. It is the practical magic of a fence repaired with zip-ties and old broom handles, the sonic alchemy of a song built from a sampled breakbeat and a field recording, or the intellectual architecture of a theory pieced together from philosophy, folklore, and forgotten journals—a testament to human ingenuity making meaning from the world's leftover pieces.
Etymology
Borrowed from French bricolage.
noun
- Construction using whatever materials were available at the time.
- Something constructed with whatever materials were available at the time.
- A rhetorical style that brings together excerpts or samples of others' rhetoric in some constructive way (to produce, for example, synthesis, extension, or beauty).e.g.“Near-synonyms: collage, montage”
- An instance of this rhetorical style's use, or a work produced with its use.e.g.“Near-synonyms: collage, montage”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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