Dictionary

gadget en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ɡæd͡ʒ.ət/ weak vowel merger
• /ɡæd͡ʒ.ɪt/ (General-American)
• /ɡæd͡ʒ.ɪt/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• (General-American) audio

Etymology

Unknown. First used in print by Robert Brown in 1886 (see quote in definition section). Might come from French gâchette or gagée, or from the French family name Gaget, an industrialist who produced promotional gadgets in collaboration with the project to build the statue of Liberty.

Meanings

1. (obsolete) A thing whose name cannot be remembered; thingamajig, doohickey.
   • 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. 1886, Robert Brown, Spunyard and Spindrift, A Sailor Boy's Log of a Voyage Out and Home in a China Tea-clipper:
2. Any device or machine, especially one whose name cannot be recalled, often either clever or complicated.
   • Cory will find cool gadgets along the way that you can use against enemies or to solve puzzles. 2008, “Story Mode”, in Cory in the House: Instruction Booklet, Burbank, California: Disney Interactive Studios; Nintendo, page 8:
   • That's quite a lot of gadgets you have collected. Do you use any of them?
   • He bought a neat new gadget for shredding potatoes.
3. (informal) Any consumer electronics product.
   • From the Marvel Mixmaster to the Miracle Microwave, every time a new-fangled gadget has lobbed into the Aussie kitchen, Aussie mums have changed their cooking styles accordingly. 1987, Kerry Cue, Hang On To Your Horses Doovers, page 5:
4. (qualifier:computer security) 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.
   • A Spectre gadget was found in the Linux kernel's implementation of system interrupts. Security > Red Hat > CVE Database > CVE-2019-1125
5. A technique for converting a part of one problem to an equivalent part of another problem, used in constructing reductions.
   • We reduce an instance of 3-SAT to an instance of bird-flock-optimization, using a gadget that converts each conjunctive Boolean clause to a group of birds.
6. A spring clip attached to the end of a punty in order to grasp the foot of a glass without leaving a bullion while finishing the bowl.

Forms

Deriveds

gadgety · gadgetbahn · gadgetry · gadgeteer · gadgetless · nongadget

Synonyms

gizmo · contrivance · contraption · widget · doohickey

Translations (87)

ka ხელსაწყო (any device or machine) · pt engenhoca (any device or machine) · acw جِهَاز (any device or machine) · eo artefakto (any device or machine) · gl tarambollo (any device or machine) · sc abbréddulu (any device or machine) · fi härpätin (any device or machine) · sv mojäng (any device or machine) · cmn 小器具 (any device or machine) · sq vegël (any device or machine) · ka მოწყობილობა (any device or machine) · sv grunka (any device or machine) · gl conto (any device or machine) · cy teclynnau (any device or machine) · ka გაჯეტი (any device or machine) · pt apetrecho (any device or machine) · uk при́стрій (any device or machine) · gl canxorna (any device or machine) · it aggeggio (any device or machine) · gl estaribeque (any device or machine) · gl fuchico (any device or machine) · ms gajet (any device or machine) · hu kütyü (any device or machine) · gl entemeñada (any device or machine) · sh геџет (any device or machine) · fi laite (any device or machine) · ru га́джет (any device or machine) · id gawai (any device or machine) · ru устро́йство (any device or machine) · pl gadżet (any device or machine) · ro gadget (any device or machine) · ar جِهَاز (any device or machine) · sh gedžet (any device or machine) · sv manick (any device or machine) · nl gadget (any device or machine) · id acang (any device or machine) · mk џиџе (any device or machine) · de Gerät (any device or machine) · uk штуко́вина (any device or machine) · cmn 小道具 (any device or machine) · de Gadget (any device or machine) · de Apparat (any device or machine) · gl enxamiada (any device or machine) · eo aparato (any device or machine) · da gadget (any device or machine) · tg гаҷет (any device or machine) · tl gadyet (any device or machine) · fi vehje (any device or machine) · es aparato (any device or machine) · ru штуко́вина (any device or machine) · fi vekotin (any device or machine) · ja 小道具 (any device or machine) · et riistapuu (any device or machine) · cy teclyn (any device or machine) · tg абзорак (any device or machine) · ko 소도구 (any device or machine) · sv mackapär (any device or machine) · fa ابزارک (any device or machine) · sh сокоћало (any device or machine) · es artilugio (any device or machine) · bg джа́джа (any device or machine) · el γκάτζετ (any device or machine) · fr gadget (any device or machine) · mk направа (any device or machine) · gl enteveada (any device or machine) · hu okosság (any device or machine) · gl trebello (any device or machine) · th แกดเจ็ต (any device or machine) · gl estriloxo (any device or machine) · eo ilo (any device or machine) · hi गैजेट (any device or machine) · hu készség (any device or machine) · fi värkki (any device or machine) · hu szerkentyű (any device or machine) · az qadjet (any device or machine) · he גַּדְגֶ׳ט (any device or machine) · ko 가젯 (any device or machine) · sv apparat (any device or machine) · cmn 小工具 (any device or machine) · uk ґа́джет (any device or machine) · he גאדג׳ט (any device or machine) · fi hilavitkutin (any device or machine) · fi härveli (any device or machine) · hy գաջեթ (any device or machine) · el μηχάνημα (any device or machine) · sh sokoćalo (any device or machine) · ja ガジェット (any device or machine)