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Gadget vs Gimmick - What's the difference?

gadget | gimmick |

As nouns the difference between gadget and gimmick

is that gadget is a thing whose name cannot be remembered; thingamajig, doohickey while gimmick is a trick or device used to attain some end.

As a verb gimmick is

to rig or set up with a trick or device.

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 ----

    gimmick

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A trick or device used to attain some end.
    • The box had a gimmick to make the coin appear to vanish.
  • * April 19 2002 , Scott Tobias, AV Club Fightville [http://www.avclub.com/articles/fightville,72589/]
    • Epperlein and Tucker focus on two featherweight hopefuls: Dustin Poirier, a formidable contender who’s looking to parlay a history of schoolyard violence and street-fighting into a potential career, and Albert Stainback, a more thoughtful yet more erratic and undisciplined fighter whose chief gimmick is entering the ring wearing a hat like the one Malcolm McDowell wore in A Clockwork Orange .
  • A clever ploy or strategy.
    • The contest was a gimmick to get people to sign up for their mailing list.

    Derived terms

    * gimmicky * gimmickry

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To rig or set up with a trick or device.
    • The magician's box was gimmicked with a wire that made it appear to open on its own.