Tchotchke, which is pronounced chahch-ke, is a Yiddish word that refers to small decorative items, trinkets or knick-knacks. So that’s things that look pretty or are sentimental, but are basically useless (AKA things my flat is full of). Tchotchkes are also often quite cheap and perhaps a little bit tacky, like souvenir keyrings or fridge magnets (I also have loads of those), for example. The term can also be used to describe a collection of these types of items.
As I mentioned, tchotchke is from Yiddish, the Jewish language that developed in central and eastern Europe. It comes from the Slavic word ‘čačka’ or ‘čača’, which simply means a small object or toy (and I don’t think is anything to do with poop). It’s actually a fairly well-known word in the States (I came across it in an article about recruitment while doing some research for, well, an article about recruitment). It probably made its way there via Jewish immigrants in the early 20th century and has since become more widely used in American English over time.
There are lots of other, thankfully easier to spell, words in English that we also get from Yiddish. Like:
chutzpah: an adjective (describing word) for someone who’s got lots of confidence (possibly too much) – ‘she’s got a lot of chutzpah considering how many tchotchkes she has in her flat’
klutz – a noun (person, place or thing) for a clumsy or awkward person – ‘she’s such a klutz, she fell over all her tchotchkes’
schlep – a verb (doing word) meaning to carry or haul something (or yourself) with difficulty – ‘she schlepped those tchotchkes all the way from London’
schmooze – a verb meaning to suck up to someone: ‘she was schmoozing the tchotchke sellers to try to get some freebies’
schmutz – dirt or filth: ‘her tchotchkes are covered in schmutz’
shmaltz – an adjective for something that’s excessively sentimental or metaphorically cheesy (also, rendered chicken or goose fat): ‘her tchotchkes are so shmaltzy’.