gadget

See also: Gadget

English

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.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɡædʒɪt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɡæd͡ʒət/

• Audio (GA):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: gad‧get
• 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. (informal) Any consumer electronics product.
   • 1987, Kerry Cue, Hang On To Your Horses Doovers, page 5:

     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.

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.

5. (computer science) 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.

Alternative forms

• gadjet

Synonyms

• contraption
• contrivance
• doohickey
• gizmo
• widget

Derived terms

• gadgetbahn
• 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: джа́джа (bg) f (džádža)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 小器具 (xiǎo qìjù), 小工具 (xiǎo gōngjù), 小道具 (xiǎo dàojù)

• Danish: gadget
• Dutch: gadget (nl)
• Esperanto: aparato (eo), ilo (eo), artefakto
• Estonian: riistapuu
• Finnish: laite (fi), härpätin, vekotin (fi), vehje (fi), värkki (fi), härveli (fi), hilavitkutin (fi)
• French: gadget (fr)
• Galician: trebello m, tarambollo (gl) m, fuchico m, canxorna f, estaribeque 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 / גַּדְגֶ׳ט (gádjet)
• Hindi: गैजेट (hi) (gaijeṭ)
• Hungarian: kütyü (hu), okosság (hu), szerkentyű (hu), készség (hu)
• Indonesian: gawai (id), acang (id)
• Italian: aggeggio (it) m
• Japanese: ガジェット (ja) (gajetto), 小道具 (こどうぐ, kodōgu)
• Korean: 소도구(小道具) (ko) (sodogu), 가젯 (gajet)
• Macedonian: направа f (naprava), џиџе n (džidže)
• 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), штуко́вина (ru) f (štukóvina)
• Sardinian:

  Logudorese: abbréddulu

• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: сокоћало n, геџет m

  Latin: sokoćalo n, gedžet m

• Spanish: artilugio (es) m
• Swedish: mojäng (sv) c, mackapär (sv) c, manick (sv) c, grunka (sv) c
• Tagalog: gadyet
• Tajik: абзорак (abzorak), гаҷет (gajet)
• Thai: แกดเจ็ต
• Ukrainian: при́стрій (uk) m (prýstrij), ґа́джет (uk) m (gádžet), штуко́вина f (štukóvyna)
• Welsh: teclyn (cy), teclynnau (cy) m pl

Further reading

• gadget on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• dagget, tagged

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English gadget, itself of French origin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡa.dʒɛt/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

gadget m (plural gadgets)

1. gadget

Synonyms

• truc
• machin

Further reading

• “gadget”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Italian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English gadget.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡad.d͡ʒet/
• Rhymes: -addʒet

Noun

gadget m (invariable)

1. gadget (small device)

Romanian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English gadget.

Noun

gadget n (plural gadgeturi)

1. gadget

Declension

Declension of gadget

	singular		plural
	indefinite articulation	definite articulation	indefinite articulation	definite articulation
nominative/accusative	(un) gadget	gadgetul	(niște) gadgeturi	gadgeturile
genitive/dative	(unui) gadget	gadgetului	(unor) gadgeturi	gadgeturilor
vocative	gadgetule		gadgeturilor

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from English gadget.

Pronunciation

 

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡaʝet/ [ˈɡa.ʝet̪]

• IPA^(key): (everywhere but Argentina and Uruguay) /ˈɡaʝet/ [ˈɡa.ʝet̪]
• IPA^(key): (Buenos Aires and environs) /ˈɡaʃet/ [ˈɡa.ʃet̪]
• IPA^(key): (elsewhere in Argentina and Uruguay) /ˈɡaʒet/ [ˈɡa.ʒet̪]

• Rhymes: -aʝet

Noun

gadget m (plural gadgets)

1. gadget