different between gadget vs item

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 item, from Latin item (“also; in the same manner”). The present English meaning derives from a usage in lists, where the first entry would begin in primis (“firstly”) or imprimis, and the other entries with item (“also, moreover”). Later, people less familiar with Latin, seeing such lists, took the word "item" as meaning "a member of a list".

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?a?t?m/
  • (US) IPA^(key): [?a????m], [?a???m?]
• Hyphenation: item

Noun

item (plural items)

1. A distinct physical object.
2. (by extension, video games) An object that can be picked up for later use.
3. A line of text having a legal or other meaning; a separate particular in an account.

4. (psychometrics) A question on a test, which may include its answers.

5. A matter for discussion in an agenda.

6. (informal) Two people who are having a relationship with each other.
   • 2010, Justin Bieber featuring Ludacris, Baby

     Are we an item? Girl, quit playin' / "We're just friends," what are you sayin'?

7. A short article in a newspaper.

8. (obsolete) A hint; an innuendo.

   • A secret item was given to some of the bishops […] to absent themselves.

Synonyms

• (object): article, object, thing
• (line of text having a legal or semantic meaning):
• (matter for discussion): subject, topic
• (two people who are having a relationship with each other): couple
• (psychometrics): test/assessment question

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

item (third-person singular simple present items, present participle iteming, simple past and past participle itemed)

1. (transitive) To make a note of.

Related terms

• itemize

Adverb

item (not comparable)

1. likewise

Anagrams

• -time, METI, emit, it me, mite, time

Czech

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [??t?m]

Adverb

item

1. (archaic) as well

   Synonyms: také, rovn?ž, dále, krom? toho

Further reading

• item in P?íru?ní slovník jazyka ?eského, 1935–1957
• item in Slovník spisovného jazyka ?eského, 1960–1971, 1989

French

Etymology

Latin.

Adverb

item

1. same; in the same way

Further reading

• “item” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Italian

Etymology 1

From Latin item.

Adverb

item

1. (law) in the same way.

Etymology 2

From English item, from Latin item.

Noun

item m (invariable)

1. (computer science) A single programmed unit.
2. (linguistics) An element of a grammatical or lexical set.

Latin

Etymology

Perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *éy and *só. Compare ita and itidem.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /?i.tem/, [??t????]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /?i.tem/, [?i?t??m]

Adverb

item (not comparable)

1. just like (in a comparison)

Related terms

References

• item in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• item in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• item in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette

Middle English

Etymology

From Latin item.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?i?t?m/

Adverb

item

1. also, and this.

References

• “item, adv. & n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-25.

Noun

item

1. the same; identical.

Descendants

• English: item
• Scots: eetem

References

• “item, adv. & n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-25.

Middle French

Etymology

Latin.

Adverb

item

1. same; in the same way

Old French

Etymology

Latin.

Adverb

item

1. same; in the same way

Portuguese

Etymology

From Latin item (“also; in the same manner”).

Pronunciation

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /?i.t?m/, /?i.t??j?/
• Hyphenation: i?tem

Noun

item m (plural itens)

1. item
2. A matter for discussion in an agenda or elsewhere.

3. A line of text with some meaning.