device

device 1 Device, contrivance, gadget, contraption mean something usually of a mechanical character which is invented as a means of doing a particular piece of work or of effecting a given end.

Device is the most widely applicable of these terms; it may be used of a thing that serves as a tool or instrument or as an effective part of a machine, especially one which shows some ingenuity in invention

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a device for controlling the speed of a car

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he invented several handy household devices including one for whipping cream and one for hulling strawberries

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It may be used also of an artifice or stratagem concocted as a means of accomplishing an end

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her device for keeping the children quiet

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he will . . . entrap thee by some treacherous device— Shak.

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or of a pattern or design that shows the play of fancy, especially of one that proves useful to the less inventive

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first-person narrative is a common literary device

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that old stale and dull device [in painting] of a rustic bridge spanning a shallow stream— Jefferies

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Contrivance stresses skill and dexterity in the adaptation of means and especially of the means at hand to an end; it sometimes carries a suggestion of crudity of or of contempt for the resulting device or system

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a contrivance for frightening birds that were eating his corn

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all sorts of contrivances for saving more time and labor— Shaw

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he would look at none of the contrivances for his comfort— Conrad

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Gadget is sometimes used of a device for which one does not know the name; more often it applies to a small and novel device and especially to an accessory or an appliance intended to add to a person's comfort, convenience, or pleasure

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the garden tools and gadgets which make gardening so much more fun— Van der Spuy

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their new car has all the latest gadgets

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Contraption is usually more depreciative than contrivance or gadget and often suggests a clumsy substitute rather than an ingenious invention

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he has rigged up a contraption which he calls a radio

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her husband's little perch-in-the-sun ... is a simple enough contraption — a wooden stump with the seat of an old kitchen chair nailed across the top of it— Glover

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It also may denote something viewed with skepticism or mistrust primarily because new, unfamiliar, or untried

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the contraption ran so well that the Detroit Common Council was forced to pass the city's first motor traffic regulation— Amer. Guide Series: Mich.

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a seventy- two-foot-Iong, eleven-ton finless rocket .... In the nose of this contraption— Daniel Lang

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Analogous words: instrument, tool, *implement, appliance, utensil: apparatus, *machine, mechanism: expedient, *resource, shift, makeshift, resort: invention, creation (see corresponding verbs at INVENT): artifice, ruse, *trick, gambit, ploy

2 *figure, design, motif, pattern

Analogous words: *symbol, emblem, attribute, type