||Net"su*ke (?), n. [Jap.] In Japanese costume and decorative art, a small object carved in wood, ivory, bone, or horn, or wrought in metal, and pierced with holes for cords by which it is connected, for convenience, with the inro, the smoking pouch (tabako-ire), and similar objects carried in the girdle. It is now much used on purses sold in Europe and America.

||Net"su*ke (?), n. [Jap.] In Japanese costume and decorative art, a small object carved in wood, ivory, bone, or horn, or wrought in metal, and pierced with holes for cords by which it is connected, for convenience, with the inro, the smoking pouch (tabako-ire), and similar objects carried in the girdle. It is now much used on purses sold in Europe and America.

• a small, often collectible, artistic carving characterized by an opening or two small holes (himotoshi), most commonly made of wood or ivory, used as a fob at the end of a cord attached to a suspended pouch containing pens, medicines, or tobacco. Netsuke orginated in feudal Japan in the late 16th and 17th centuries.