different between gadget vs gear

English

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

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?æd??t/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?æd??t/
• Rhymes: -æd??t
• Hyphenation: gad?get

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.

3. (informal) 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

Alternative forms

• gadjet

Derived terms

• gadgetbahn
• gadgety

Translations

Further reading

• gadget on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• dagget, tagged

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English gadget.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?a.d??t/

Noun

gadget m (plural gadgets)

1. gadget

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English gadget.

Noun

gadget m (invariable)

1. gadget (small device)

Romanian

Etymology

From English gadget.

Noun

gadget n (plural gadgeturi)

1. gadget

Declension

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from English gadget.

Noun

gadget m (plural gadgets)

1. gadget

English

Etymology

From Middle English gere, a borrowing from Old Norse gervi, from Proto-Germanic *garwijan? (“to prepare”). See also adjective yare, yar from the same root via Old English.

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: gîr, IPA^(key): /???(?)/
• (US) enPR: gîr, IPA^(key): /???/
• Rhymes: -??(r)

Noun

gear (countable and uncountable, plural gears)

1. (uncountable) Equipment or paraphernalia, especially that used for an athletic endeavor.
2. Clothing; garments.
3. (obsolete) Goods; property; household items.

   • 1551, Ralph Robinson (sometimes spelt Raphe Robynson) (translator), Utopia (originally written by Sir Thomas More)

4. (countable) A wheel with grooves (teeth) engraved on the outer circumference, such that two such devices can interlock and convey motion from one to the other; a gear wheel.

   Synonyms: cog, cogwheel, gearwheel

5. (countable, automotive, cycling) A particular combination or choice of interlocking gears, such that a particular gear ratio is achieved.
6. (countable, automotive) A configuration of the transmission of a motor car so as to achieve a particular ratio of engine to axle torque.
7. (aviation) Ellipsis of landing gear.

8. (slang) Recreational drugs, including steroids.
   • 2003, Marianne Hancock, Looking for Oliver (page 90)

9. (uncountable, archaic) Stuff.
   • 1662, Henry More, An Antidote Against Atheism, Book III, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More, p. 113:

10. (obsolete) Business matters; affairs; concern.
11. (obsolete, Britain, dialect) Anything worthless; nonsense; rubbish.
    • (Can we find and add a quotation of Wright to this entry?)
    • March 29, 1549, Hugh Latimer, the fourth sermon preached before King Edward

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

gear (third-person singular simple present gears, present participle gearing, simple past and past participle geared)

1. (engineering, transitive) To provide with gearing; to fit with gears in order to achieve a desired gear ratio.
2. (engineering, intransitive) To be in, or come into, gear.
3. To dress; to put gear on; to harness.
4. (usually with to or toward(s)) To design or devise (something) so as to be suitable (for a particular type of person or a particular purpose).

   This shop is not really geared towards people of our age.

   They have geared the hotel mainly at tourists.

5. (finance) To borrow money in order to invest it in assets.

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

gear (comparative more gear, superlative most gear)

1. (chiefly Liverpudlian) great or fantastic

Anagrams

• Ager, GRAE, Gera, Rega, ager, areg, gare, rage

Manx

Alternative forms

• geayr, geyre

Etymology

From Old Irish gér.

Verb

gear (verbal noun gearey)

1. to laugh, chuckle

Adjective

gear

1. sharp, keen
2. sour, acid

Further reading

• Gregory Toner, Maire Ní Mhaonaigh, Sharon Arbuthnot, Dagmar Wodtko, Maire-Luise Theuerkauf, editors (2019) , “gér”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

Old English

Alternative forms

• ??r, ??r – Anglian

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *j?r?, from Proto-Indo-European *yeh?r-. Cognate with Old Frisian j?r (West Frisian jier), Old Saxon j?r (Middle Low German jâr), Dutch jaar, Old High German j?r (German Jahr), Old Norse ár (Danish/Norwegian/Swedish år, Icelandic/Faroese ár), Gothic ???????????? (j?r). The Indo-European root is also the source of Ancient Greek ??? (h?ra, “season”), Russian ??? (jara), Czech jaro, Lithuanian jore (“springtime”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /jæ???r/

Noun

??ar n (nominative plural ??ar)

1. year
2. the runic character ? (/j/)

Declension

Derived terms

• ??ardagas
• ??arl??
• ?e?ra (uncertain)

Descendants

• Middle English: yeer, here, yere, ?ere
  • English: year
  • Scots: year

Portuguese

Etymology

From an Old Portuguese *gear (compare geo), from Latin gel?re, present active infinitive of gel?. Doublet of the borrowing gelar. Compare also Galician xear.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?i?a?]

Verb

gear (first-person singular present indicative geio, past participle geado)

1. (impersonal) to frost (weather)

Conjugation

Related terms

West Frisian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /????r/

Adverb

gear

1. together

Further reading

• “gear (III)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011