Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Gaffe |
GaffeNoun1. A socially awkward or tactless act. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "gaffe" was first used: 1909. (references) |
Synonyms: GaffeSynonyms: faux pas (n), gaucherie (n), slip (n), solecism (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Gaffe |
| Specialty definitions using "gaffe": Riff-raff. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Gaffe" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. French (barge pole, bloomer, blooper, blunder, boob, clangour, gaffe), German (gape), Italian (blunder, faux pas, gaffe). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | Gaffe Loulou! (1999) Fais gaffe la gaffe (1981) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Gaffe" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Gaffe" is used about 37 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 37 | 56,631 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "gaffe": make a gaffe. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
gaffe | 16 |
gaffe gaston la | 3 |
la gaffe | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "gaffe"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | gafë (balk, baulk, bloomer, blunder, Boner, faux pas, gross fault, howler, slip), gabim (balk, baulk, boob, delinquency, delusion, error, fallacy, false step, fault, flub, frailty, lapse, Lapsus, misdoing, Miss, misstep, mistake, slip, slip up, trip). (various references) | |
Arabic | حماقة (blindness, brainlessness, brutishness, crap, doltishness, dumbness, emptiness, fatuity, fatuousness, fat-wittedness, feeblemindedness, folly, foolery, hankey-pankey, hanky panky, idiocy, imbecility, insanity, nonsense, rot, silliness, stupidity, thick-wittedness, tomfoolery, unwisdom, weak-mindedness), شراب الماشية. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | гаф (boob, bungle, faux pas, floater, gaff, infelicity, slip, snafu). (various references) | |
Czech | faux pas, bota (boob, boot, goof, mistake, shoe). (various references) | |
Farsi | لغزش (Error, Lapse, Peccadillo, Slide, Slip, Slippage, Slither, Trip), اشتباه درگفتاریاکردار. (various references) | |
French | gaffe, bévue. (various references) | |
German | Ausrutscher (clanger, slip, slip up). (various references) | |
Greek | γκάφα (blunder). (various references) | |
Hungarian | tapintatlanság (blundering, brashness, gaucherie, imprudence, indelicacy, indiscretion), ügyetlenség (awkwardness, bumbling, bungle, clumsiness, left-handedness). (various references) | |
Indonesian | kesalahan (error, flaw, guilt, mistake, trespass), kejanggalan (clumsiness). (various references) | |
Italian | gaffe (blunder, faux pas). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | へぼ医者 (all over, being sticky, bloody fool!, blunder, bungle, chattering, clinging, closely, empty, frivolous, gooey, hard, hungry, messy, must, non-stop talking, prattling, quack doctor, shall, should, speaking indiscreetly, squished flat, sticky, thickly, to commit a blunder). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | へま (blunder, bungle). (various references) | |
Manx | shaghrynys (abberation, absence, bewilderment, blunder, confusion, deviation, deviousness, error, hallucination, maze, mental alienation, quibble, truancy), marran (bloomer, erratum, mistake, slip). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | affegay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | gafe (faux pas). (various references) | |
Russian | оплошность (lapse, misdoing, omission, oversight). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | gaf (guff), pogrešan korak (false step, faux pas, misstep, mis-step). (various references) | |
Spanish | plancha (flat iron, flat-iron, gangway, griddle, howler, iron, planch, plate, sadiron, slab, smoothing iron), patinazo (skid), metedura de pata (bloomer, Boner). (various references) | |
Swedish | tabbe (bloomer, boner, boob, clinker, cock up, faux pas, goof, howler, muff, slip), blunder (bloomer, blunder, boob). (various references) | |
Turkish | gaf (atrocity, bloomer, blunder, Boner, break, bull, clanger, contretemps, faux pas, flub, gaff, goof, howler, slip, slip of the tongue, slip up), pot kırma (dropping a brick, gaucherie, making a blunder), hata (balk, baulk, blemish, delinquency, demerit, error, failing, false step, falsity, fault, faux pas, flaw, floater, fluff, goof, imperfection, inaccuracy, lapse, mistake, slip, slip up, stumble, trip, wrong, wrongness), çam devirme. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | хибний крок, необачність (haste, hastiness, misdoing, negligence, oversight, precipitance, precipitancy). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | việc l m h, sai lầm (erroneous, mistake, mistook, wrongly), lầm lỗi câu nói hớ. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| French | 1500-Modern | gaffe. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "gaffe": gaffed, gaffer, gaffers, gaffes. (additional references) | |
| |
"Gaffe" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: affa, affe, baffe, Gadfa, gaf, gafa, gafe, gafee, gaffa, Gaffan, gaffee, gaffel, Gaffon, Gafyn, Garfa, gaufe, gauffe, gefe, gf, gfe, goeff, gofe, goffe, graffe, guaff, gufe, Gyamfi, haffen, jafe, Jaffet, Maffei, Maffeo, Maffey, Naffah, naffi, taffe, Yaffe. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "gaffe" (pronounced ga"f) |
| 3 | g a" f | gaff. |
| 2 | -a" f | behalf, calf, chaff, giraffe, graph, half, laugh, Raff, staff. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-e-f-f-g" | |
-1 letter: gaff. | |
-2 letters: aff, age, eff, fag, gae. | |
-3 letters: ae, ag, ef, fa. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-e-f-f-g" | |
+1 letter: gaffed, gaffer, gaffes. | |
+2 letters: agraffe, gaffers, gauffer, giraffe. | |
+3 letters: agraffes, effacing, effigial, firefang, gauffers, giraffes, guffawed, offstage, suffrage. | |
+4 letters: affecting, bafflegab, firefangs, gauffered, offstages, suffrages. | |
+5 letters: affrighted, bafflegabs, chaffering, firefanged, gauffering, reaffixing, restaffing. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Usage Frequency 7. Expressions 8. Expressions: Internet | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Translations: Ancient 11. Derivations 12. Rhymes | 13. Anagrams 14. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
