gadget

/ˈgædʒət/

/ˈgædʒɪt/

Other forms: gadgets

A gadget is a tool or device, especially one that works remarkably well for a specific task. Your dad's favorite kitchen gadget might be his special knife that cuts vegetables into spirals.

The remote control your sister rigs up to the Christmas tree is a gadget, and your camping tool that folds out into various knives, corkscrews, and scissors is another kind of gadget. The original spelling was gadjet, and it's thought to have originated in the 1850's as sailors' slang, meaning any mechanism or ship part that either lacked a name or whose name had been forgotten. It may be rooted in the French gâchette, "piece of a mechanism."

Definitions of gadget

1. noun

   a small mechanical device or tool
   synonyms: appliance, contraption, contrivance, convenience, gismo, gizmo, widget

   types:

   gadgetry

   appliances collectively

   gimbal

   an appliance that allows an object (such as a ship's compass) to remain horizontal even as its support tips

   injector

   a contrivance for injecting (e.g., water into the boiler of a steam engine or particles into an accelerator etc.)

   mod con

   modern convenience; the appliances and conveniences characteristic of a modern house

   type of:

   device

   an instrumentality invented for a particular purpose