gadget

English

Wikipedia

Alternative forms

• gadjet

Etymology

Unknown. First used in print by Robert Brown in 1886 (see quote in definition section). Might come from French gâchette or gagée.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɡædʒɪt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ædʒɪt

Noun

gadget (plural gadgets)

1. (obsolete) a thing whose name cannot be remembered; thingamajig, doohickey
   • 1886, Robert Brown, Spunyard and Spindrift, A Sailor Boy's Log of a Voyage Out and Home in a China Tea-clipper:

     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 chicken-fixing, or a gadjet, or a timmey-noggy, or a wim-wom—just pro tem., you know.

2. any device or machine, especially one whose name cannot be recalled. Often either clever or complicated.

   He bought a neat new gadget for shredding potatoes.

   That's quite a lot of gadgets you have collected. Do you use any of them?

Synonyms

• contraption
• contrivance
• doohickey
• gizmo
• widget

Derived terms

• gadgety

Translations

any device or machine

• Bulgarian: джаджа (bg) (dzhadzha) f
• Danish: gadget (da)
• Estonian: riistapuu (et)
• Finnish: laite, härpätin, vekotin, vehje, värkki, härveli (fi), hilavitkutin (fi)
• French: gadget (fr)
• Georgian: please add this translation if you can
• German: Apparat (de) n, Gadget (de) n
• Greek: μηχάνημα (el) (michánima) n, γκάτζετ (el) (gkátzet) n
• Italian: aggeggio (it) m

• Macedonian: направа (mk) (náprava) f
• Portuguese: engenhoca, apetrecho (pt) m
• Romanian: please add this translation if you can
• Russian: устройство (ru) (ustrójstvo) n, гаджет (ru) (gádžet) m
• Sardinian:

  Logudorese Sardinian: abbréddulu

• Serbo-Croatian: сокоћало (sh) (sokoćalo) n
• Welsh: teclyn (cy)

Anagrams

• tagged

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Italian

Etymology

English

Noun

gadget m (invariable)

1. gadget (small device)