Does anyone know?
Why are we not talking about thingamabobs here?
Also, what about a gewgaw (or is it a geegaw)?
Honestly, most people will use those words interchangeably. So if you’re talking to someone, just understand that, to that person, they likely mean the same thing.
I may be wrong but I think each of their descriptions scale differently depending on how much skookum they have.
Any one of those phrases could be used to describe The Device
Just going by memory of usage pattern:
Gadget: a small (at least usually small enough to be carried around and utilized by a single person) piece of technology for a specific, often niche use. Eg, “go go gadget shark-repelant spray gun!”
Contraption: a device, often jury rigged or prototyped, built to serve some particular purpose. Eg, “I built this here contraption to dig us a way out of here”
Doohickey: A word used refer to a contraption or other piece of technology that the speaker does not understand, or does not know the purpose of, especially to emphasise that lack of understanding. Eg, “they’re gonna ‘beam’ us out of here with that doohickey.”
Not sure about gizmos.
Edit: examples
I think gadgets and gizmos are in the same general category, but gadgets tend to be more mechanically operated and gizmos tend to be more electrically operated.
Like a wrist-mounted crossbow would be a gadget, whereas a wrist-mounted laser would be a gizmo.
Eg, “go go gadget shark-repelant spray gun!”
That’s a serious violation of content crossover!
It’s supposed to be the shark-repellent Bat spray.
🤫 Batman and Inspector Gadget have been canoodling
Thank you kind person!
It was a fun question! Thanks for asking it
Gizmo is no hydrohomie, that’s all i know.
A Gizmo is also a Gadget, but with a forgotten or unknown name.
syn·o·nym /ˈsinəˌnim/ noun noun: synonym; plural noun: synonyms
a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language, for example shut is a synonym of close.
Synonyms aren’t necessarily interchangeable. Asking about the distinctions is a good question.
and yet; sometimes they are 100% interchangeable and asking for distinctions is not a good question.
And yet another yet, the comm description is: “There is no such thing as a Stupid Question!”.
It’s too bad there isn’t a community where you could ask a question that you realize is probably stupid, but still want an answer for
That is a very sad way to think of language.
literally
