different between gammer vs gaffer

English

Etymology

Reduction of godmother or grandmother.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?æm?/

Noun

gammer (plural gammers)

1. (obsolete) An old woman.
   • 1845, Thomas Cooper, The Purgatory of Suicides, Book the Fourth, Stanza IX:

     If thou return not, Gammer o'er her pail

     Will sing in sorrow, 'neath the brinded cow,

     And Gaffer sigh over his nut-brown ale […]

Coordinate terms

• gaffer

See also

• Gammer Gurton's Needle, a 16th-century English comedy.

Anagrams

• -gramme, gramme

English

Etymology 1

From gaff (“hook”) +? -er. The natural lighting on early film sets was adjusted by opening and closing flaps in the tent cloths, called gaff cloths or gaff flaps.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?æf?/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?æf?/
• Rhymes: -æf?(?)

Noun

gaffer (plural gaffers)

1. (film) A chief lighting technician for a motion-picture or television production.
2. A glassblower.

Related terms

• gaffer tape

Translations

Etymology 2

Likely a contraction of godfather, but with the vowels influenced by grandfather. Compare French compère, German Gevatter.

Noun

gaffer (plural gaffers)

1. (colloquial) An old man.
   • 1845, Thomas Cooper, The Purgatory of Suicides, Book the Fourth, Stanza IX:

     If thou return not, Gammer o'er her pail

     Will sing in sorrow, 'neath the brinded cow,

     And Gaffer sigh over his nut-brown ale […]

2. (Britain) A foreman.
3. A sailor.
4. (in Maritime regions) The baby in the house.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:old man

Related terms

• gammer

Translations

References

• “gaffer”, in OED Online ?, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1989

Anagrams

• Graeff

French

Etymology

gaffe +? -er

Verb

gaffer

1. to make a gaffe; to mess up; botch up
2. to gaffer tape

Conjugation

Further reading

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

Norman

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation

Verb

gaffer

1. (Jersey) to grasp

Welsh

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??af?r/

Verb

gaffer

1. Soft mutation of caffer.

Mutation