widget

English

Wikipedia

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɪdʒɪt

Etymology 1

Coined by George S. Kaufman in his play Beggar on Horseback (1924).

Noun

widget (plural widgets)

1. A placeholder name for an unnamed, unspecified, or hypothetical manufactured good or product.

   Suppose we have a widget factory that produces 100 units per year...

2. Portable code that can be easily installed and executed by an end user.
3. A floating widget or other device inside a beer can, meant to create foam when opened
4. A small scraping tool consisting of a blade and a handle, commonly used to remove paint from glass and other smooth surfaces

Synonyms

• (unspecified manufactured good): thingy, gizmo, sprocket
• (scraping tool): scraper

Translations

unnamed, unspecified, or hypothetical manufactured good or product

• Czech: věcička (cs) f, udělátko (cs) n, udělátor (cs) m
• Dutch: dingetje (nl), prul (nl)
• Finnish: vempain (fi), vekotin (fi)

• French: babiole (fr) f, camelote (fr) f
• Irish: giuirléid (ga) f

floating widget or other device inside a beer can

small scraping tool

• French: spatule (fr) f
• German: Schaber (de) m

• Romanian: spatula (ro) f
• Spanish: espátula (es)

Etymology 2

Borrowed as a shortened form of “window gadget”

Wikipedia

Noun

widget (plural widgets)

1. (computing, graphical user interface) Any one of the components of a computer application's graphical user interface, such as a Cancel button or text input box that a user interacts with.

Synonyms

• (GUI): control

Translations

component of a graphical user interface that the user interacts with

• Finnish: widgetti (colloquial)
• French: widget (fr) m
• German: Steuerelement (de) n, Widget (de) n
• Macedonian: посреднички елемент (mk) (posrédnički elemént) m

• Norwegian: widget (no)
• Polish: widżet (pl) m
• Russian: виджет (ru) (vídzhet) m
• Turkish: parçacık (tr)