gadget

English

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. Compare Finnish koje (“instrument, device”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /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?

3. (slang) Any consumer electronics product.
4. (computing) A sequence of machine code instructions crafted as part of an exploit that attempts to divert execution to a memory location chosen by the attacker.
   • Security > Red Hat > CVE Database > CVE-2019-1125

     A Spectre gadget was found in the Linux kernel's implementation of system interrupts.

Synonyms

• contraption
• contrivance
• doohickey
• gizmo
• widget

Derived terms

• gadgety

Translations

any device or machine

• Albanian: vegël (sq) f
• Arabic: جِهَاز m (jihāz)

  Hijazi Arabic: جِهَاز m (jihāz)

• Armenian: գաջեթ (gaǰetʻ)
• Azerbaijani: qadjet
• Bulgarian: джаджа (bg) f (džadža)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 小器具 (xiǎoqìjù), 小工具 (xiǎogōngjù), 小道具 (zh) (xiǎodàojù)

• Danish: gadget
• Estonian: riistapuu
• Finnish: laite (fi), härpätin, vekotin (fi), vehje (fi), värkki (fi), härveli (fi), hilavitkutin (fi)
• French: gadget (fr)
• Galician: trebello m, conto (gl) m, estriloxo m, enxamiada f, entemeñada f, enteveada f
• Georgian: გაჯეტი (gaǯeṭi), მოწყობილობა (moc̣q̇obiloba), ხელსაწყო (xelsac̣q̇o)
• German: Apparat (de) n, Gadget (de) n, Gerät (de) n
• Greek: μηχάνημα (el) n (michánima), γκάτζετ (el) n (gkátzet)
• Hebrew: גאדג׳ט (gádjet)
• Hindi: गैजेट (hi) (gaijeṭ)
• Hungarian: kütyü (hu), okosság (hu), szerkentyű (hu), készség (hu)
• Indonesian: gawai (id), acang (id)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Italian: aggeggio (it) m
• Japanese: ガジェット (gajetto), 小道具 (こどうぐ, kodōgu)
• Korean: 소도구 (ko) (sodogu)
• Macedonian: направа f (naprava)
• Persian: ابزارک (abzârak)
• Polish: gadżet (pl) m
• Portuguese: engenhoca (pt), apetrecho (pt) m
• Romanian: gadget (ro) n
• Russian: устро́йство (ru) n (ustrójstvo), га́джет (ru) m (gádžet), штуковина (ru) f (štukovina)
• Sardinian:

  Logudorese: abbréddulu

• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: сокоћало n, геџет m

  Latin: sokoćalo (sh) n, gedžet m

• Spanish: artilugio (es) m
• Swedish: mojäng (sv) c
• Tajik: абзорак (abzorak), гаҷет (gajet)
• Thai: แกดเจ็ต
• Welsh: teclyn (cy), teclynnau (cy) m pl

Anagrams

• dagget, tagged

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French

Etymology

Borrowed from English gadget.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡa.dʒɛ/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

gadget m (plural gadgets)

1. gadget

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Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English gadget.

Noun

gadget m (uncountable)

1. gadget (small device)

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Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from English gadget.

Noun

gadget m (plural gadgets)

1. gadget