gadget
/ɡæd͡ʒ.ɪt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.45 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any device or machine, especially one whose name cannot be recalled, often either clever or complicated.
noun
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.
noun
A technique for converting a part of one problem to an equivalent part of another problem, used in constructing reductions.
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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?"
- "Cory will find cool gadgets along the way that you can use against enemies or to solve puzzles."
- "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."
- "A Spectre gadget was found in the Linux kernel's implementation of system interrupts."
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.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɡæd͡ʒ.ɪt/
- British English: /ɡæd͡ʒ.ɪt/