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Gadget vs Devise - What's the difference?

gadget | devise |

In obsolete terms the difference between gadget and devise

is that gadget is a thing whose name cannot be remembered; thingamajig, doohickey while devise is to imagine; to guess.

As a verb devise is

to use one's intellect to plan or design (something).

gadget

English

(wikipedia gadget)

Alternative forms

* gadjet

Noun

(en noun)
  • (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.
  • any device or machine, especially one whose name cannot be recalled. Often either clever or complicated.
    • 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?

    Synonyms

    * contraption * contrivance * doohickey * gizmo * widget

    Derived terms

    * gadgety

    Anagrams

    * English placeholder terms ----

    devise

    English

    (wikipedia devise)

    Verb

    (devis)
  • To use one's intellect to plan or design (something).
    • to devise''' an argument; to '''devise a machine, or a new system of writing
  • * Bancroft
    • devising schemes to realize his ambitious views
  • *
    • Thus, the task of the linguist devising' a grammar which models the linguistic competence of the fluent native speaker is to '''devise a ''finite'' set of rules which are capable of specifying how to form, interpret, and pronounce an ''infinite set of well-formed sentences.
  • To leave (property) in a will.
  • (archaic) To form a scheme; to lay a plan; to contrive; to consider.
  • * Alexander Pope
    • I thought, devised , and Pallas heard my prayer.
  • (archaic) To plan or scheme for; to plot to obtain.
  • * Spenser
    • For wisdom is most riches; fools therefore / They are which fortunes do by vows devise .
  • (obsolete) To imagine; to guess.
    • (Spenser)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of leaving real property in a will.
  • Such a will, or a clause in such a will.
  • * Bancroft
    • Fines upon devises were still exacted.
  • The real property left in such a will.

    • See also

    * device * devising

    Anagrams

    * ----