tool such as a machine that has a particular function, but is often thought of as a novelty. Gadgets are sometimes referred to as gizmos.

It is not known whether other software companies are explicitly drawing on that inspiration when featuring the word in names of their technologies or simply referring to the generic meaning. The word widget is older in this context. In the movie Back to School from 1986 by Alan Metter, there is a scene where an economics professor Dr. Barbay, wants to start for educational purposes a fictional company that produces widgets: Its a fictional product.

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For other uses, see Gadget (disambiguation). For Wikipedia Gadgets, see Wikipedia:Gadget.A gadget is a small

documented use of the term gadget in context of software engineering was in 1985 by the developers of AmigaOS, the operating system of the Amiga computers (intuition.library and also later gadtools.library). It denotes what other technological traditions call GUI widgeta control element in graphical user intece. This naming convention remains in continuing use (as of 2008) since then.

Other sources cite a derivation from the French gâchette which has been applied to various pieces of a firing mechanism, or the French gage, a small tool or accessory.

The etymology of the word is disputed. A widely circulated story holds that the word gadget was invented when Gaget, Gauthier &owever this contradicts the evidence that the word was already used before in nautical circles, and the ct that it did not become popular, at least in the USA, until after World War I.

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The October 1918 issue of Notes and Queries contains a multi-article entry on the word gadget (12 S. iv. 187). H. Tapley-Soper of The City Library, Exeter, writes:

A discussion arose at the Plymouth meeting of the Devonshire Association in 1916 when it was suggested that this word should be recorded in the list of local verbal provincialisms. Several members dissented from its inclusion on the ground that it is in common use throughout the country; and a naval officer who was present said that it has for years been a popular expression in the service for a tool or implement,new york asian escort the exact name of which is unknown or has for the moment been forgotten. I have also frequently heard it applied by motor-cycle friends to the collection of fitments to be seen on motor cycles. His handle-bars are smothered in gadgets refers to such things as speedometers, mirrors, levers, badges, mascots, &nd the name has been applied by local platelayers to the gauge used to test the accuracy of their work. In ct, to borrow from present-day Army slang, Gadgets, gadget is applied to any old thing.

TexGadget Gadgetst is aGadgetsvailable under the ; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details.

The origins of the word gadget trace back to the 19th century. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, there is anecdotal evidence for the use of gadget as a placeholder name for a technical item whose precise name one cant remember since the 1850s; with Robert Browns 1886 book Spunyarn and Spindrift, A sailor boys log of a voyage out and home in a China tea-clipper containing the earliest known usage in print.

. The Great Gizmo. Design by Choice. Ed. Penny Sparke. Rizzoli, 1981. p. 110. Originally appeared in Industrial Design 12 (September 1965): 58-59.

: World Wide Words: Gadget (accessed February 6, 2008) Also in: Michael Quinion: Port Out, Starboard Home: The Fascinating Stories We Tell About the Words We Use. ISBN 978-0-14--0

The usage of the term in military parlance extended beyond the navy. In the book Above the Battle by Vivian Drake, published in 1918 by D. Appleton &ogle Gadgets,Microsoft Gadgets,andDashboard software Apple Widgets

also defines gadgets and their relationship to widgets (buttons lables etc). The gadget was a windowless widget which was supposed to improve the performance of the application by reducing the memory load on the X server. A gadget would use the Window id of its parent widget and had no children of its own