gadget
pronunciation
How to pronounce gadget in British English:
UK [ˈɡædʒɪt]
How to pronounce gadget in American English:
US [ˈɡædʒɪt]
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- Noun:
- a device that is very useful for a particular job
Word Origin
- gadget
- gadget: [19] Gadget is an elusive sort of word, as vague in its history as it is unspecific in its meaning. It seems to have originated as a piece of sailors’ slang, and is said to have been current as long ago as the 1850s, but the earliest record of it in print is from 1886, in R Brown’s Spun Yarn and Spindrift: ‘Then the names of all the other things on board a ship! I don’t know half of them yet; even the sailors forget at times, and if the exact name of anything they want happens to slip from their memory, they call it a chickenfixing, or a gadjet, or a gill-guy, or a timmeynoggy, or a wim-wom – just pro tem., you know’.As for its source, suggestions have included French gâchette ‘catch of a mechanism’ and French dialect gagée ‘tool’.
- gadget (n.)
- 1886, gadjet (but said by OED corespondents to date from 1850s), sailors' slang word for any small mechanical thing or part of a ship for which they lacked, or forgot, a name; perhaps from French gâchette "catch-piece of a mechanism" (15c.), diminutive of gâche "staple of a lock." OED says derivation from gauge is "improbable."
Synonym
Example
- 1. Do you have an expensive shoe or gadget habit ?
- 2. Yet the fire is not just a rival gadget , but something essentially different .
- 3. The team say they are now hoping to begin working with gadget makers .
- 4. Third , apple 's rise shows that , even in a period of austerity , consumers are willing to pay for the must-have gadget .
- 5. Her favorite gadget is her personal ipod .