Paraphernalia and parapherna

If I were to enumerate my favourite sounding words paraphernalia would be on that list.  It is a noun meaning miscellaneous articles, especially the equipment needed for a particular activity; trappings associated with a particular institution or activity (often such as are regarded as superfluous).  

Its origins are as a legal word and in the mid-17^th century it meant those articles of personal property which the law allowed a married woman to keep, and, to a certain extent, deal with as her own.  i.e. not a lot!! 

The Latin word parapherna meant, in Roman law meant a wife’s articles over and above her dowry – which remained her husband’s.  In the 18^th century that word too came into English law to mean the same thing – the wife’s belongings that hadn’t come as her dowry.