gimmick
pronunciation
How to pronounce gimmick in British English:
UK [ˈɡɪmɪk]
How to pronounce gimmick in American English:
US [ˈɡɪmɪk]
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- Noun:
- something whose name is either forgotten or not known
- any clever (deceptive) maneuver
Word Origin
- gimmick
- gimmick: [20] Gimmick originally meant ‘dishonest contrivance’ – indeed, in the first known printed reference to it, in George Maine’s and Bruce Grant’s Wise-crack dictionary 1926 (an American publication), it is defined specifically as a ‘device for making a fair game crooked’. The modern sense ‘stratagem for gaining attention’ seems to have come to the fore in the 1940s. The origins of the word are a mystery, although it has been suggested that it began as gimac, an anagram of magic used by conjurers.
- gimmick (n.)
- 1910, American English, perhaps an alteration of gimcrack, or an anagram of magic. In a hotel at Muscatine, Iowa, the other day I twisted the gimmick attached to the radiator, with the intention of having some heat in my Nova Zemblan booth. ["Domestic Engineering," January 8, 1910]
Example
- 1. The move may be more gimmick than substance .
- 2. They employ another gimmick , too .
- 3. Swiss asset manager julius baer has a nice gimmick to attract the more paranoid investors in its year-old gold etf .
- 4. It is a gimmick that would barely scratch the surface of america 's fiscal deficit .
- 5. For normal people , siri hovers between a gimmick and tease .