Terms of the Trade: Whatnot
Perhaps the most colloquial and winsome term in the antique lexicon, a whatnot is the name given to a floor-standing piece of open display furniture, comprised of slender uprights which support a series of shelves, based on the French design known as an ‘etagere’.
The term is a derivation of the old English word ‘whatnot’, which dates back to the mid-16th century and, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, can be used to mean ‘anything’, ‘everything’, or ‘all sorts of things.’