Widget

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Widget may refer to:

• A widget engine, such as Dashboard widgets for Apple's Mac OS X 10.4
• A placeholder name for any unspecified device or good, particularly as used by economists for an abstract commodity
• Widget (beer), the nitrogen widget in cans and bottles of beer
• Widget (computing), a component of a graphical user interface that the user interacts with
• Web widget, a third party item that can be embedded in a web page
• Widget (comics), a character in Marvel Comics
• Widget (TV series), a 1990's animated television series
• The Delta Widget, a name for the logo of Delta Air Lines
• A mascot for Armadillo Aerospace
• A male gremlin in Roald Dahl's The Gremlins
• A nickname for the New York World Journal Tribune
• Widgets (He-Man), the race of midget-like people in the cartoon series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.
• A small scraping tool consisting of a blade and a handle, commonly used to remove paint from glass and other smooth surfaces.
• The form of currency in Lego's Bionicle storyline.
• A variety of potato. Also see wedge.

[edit] Etymology

Some say that the word "widget" is derived from the combination of "window" and "gadget". This is unlikely. The earliest known occurrence of the word "widget" is in Beggar on Horseback (1924), a comedy play written by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. The hero of this play is a struggling composer who must choose between creating music that stimulates his soul (but earns no money) or earning a living by accepting a soul-deadening job in a factory that makes "widgets". The text of the play intentionally refrains from revealing what "widgets" are; clearly, they represent any purely mercantile commodity that has no artistic or spiritual value.

[edit] See also

• Metasyntactic variable
• Gadget
• Spurgen