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Etymology and origin of the English word gaff

English has three main words spelled gaff: the hook or spar, the slang word for a fair or cheap theatre, and the slang word for talk.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

gaff1 hook, spar

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1300 before 1300, a satire on the people of Kildare
Borrowed from
Old French gaffe via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Occitan gafar

Etymology

The word for the hook is inherited from Middle English gaffe,[5][2] borrowed from Old French gaffe (“boat-hook”),[2][6][7] also French gaffe,[1][8] from Occitan gaf (“hook, boat-hook”),[7][9][8] a noun from gafar (“to seize”).[7][9] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English take it straight from the Occitan word.[10][11] The OED compares Spanish gafa and Portuguese gafa.[1] The Occitan verb is most often traced to Germanic:[7][9] Dictionary.com proposes a Visigothic *gaff-, perhaps from the base of Gothic 𐌲𐌹𐌱𐌰𐌽 (giban, “to give”),[9] and Etymonline gives Proto-Germanic *gaf-, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *kap- (“to grasp”),[2] the root the American Heritage Dictionary also names.[7] Partridge reports Gothic *gaffan (“to catch or seize”), but prefers a Celtic source, as does the Middle English Dictionary.[12][5] Skeat and Weekley linked it with words for a fork, Dutch gaffel and Old English gafol.[13][14] The same French noun gave gaffe, a blunder.[7][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

An iron hook, or a staff armed with one: before 1300, in a satire on the people of Kildare,[1] though Etymonline says about 1300 and Barnhart probably before 1325.[2][6] The first quotation in the Middle English Dictionary, of about 1335, compares a long staff to it: "crokid as a gaffe".[5]

Semantic evolution

The general sense "iron hook" now survives only in dialect,[1] as in Devon, where a gaff hooked furze out of the rick.[16] The word narrowed to fishing in Blount's Glossographia (1656), as a barbed spear and then a hooked stick for landing large fish, especially salmon.[1][6][2] Johnson (1755) gives only "a harpoon or large hook".[17] A steel spur for a fighting cock is recorded from 1688,[1] and the sailors' spar, which holds the head of a fore-and-aft sail, from 1769, in Falconer's marine dictionary.[1][2] The verb, from the noun, is dated 1844.[1][6][3] The card sharps' sense comes from the same hook: in 1859 Matsell describes the gaff as a ring with a sharp point, worn on the dealer's forefinger,[18] and the American Heritage Dictionary traces the slang senses "trick, gimmick" and "to cheat" probably to such rings.[7] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Collins keep the verb "to cheat" with this word, whereas the OED lists it, from 1934, under the verb "to gamble" and calls that verb's origin uncertain.[3][8][1]

Timeline

  • before 1300 – an iron hook, or a staff armed with one.[1]
  • 1656 – a barbed fishing spear; a hooked stick for landing fish.[1][6][2]
  • 1688 – a steel spur for a fighting cock.[1]
  • 1769 – a spar for the head of a fore-and-aft sail.[1][2]
  • 1844 – verb, to strike or land a fish with a gaff.[1][6][3]
  • 1859 – a sharp-pointed ring used by a cheating card dealer.[18]
  • 1934 – verb, to deceive or trick; to make a game or device dishonest.[1]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A pole with a large hook, or a barbed spear, for landing large fish.[7][8][3]
  2. (nautical) A spar on a mast that holds out the upper edge of a fore-and-aft sail.[7][8][1]
  3. A sharp metal spur fixed to the leg of a gamecock.[7][8][3]
  4. A climbing iron used by workers on telephone or electric lines.[7][3]
  5. (slang) A trick or gimmick, especially one used in a swindle or to rig a game.[7][18]

Verb

  1. To strike or land a fish with a gaff: She gaffed the pike at the second try.[8][3][1]
  2. (slang) To cheat or trick someone.[8][3][1]
  3. (slang) To tamper with a game or device so that it can't be won fairly.[3][1]

Word family

  • gaff-rigged
  • gaffsail
  • gaff-topsail

gaff2 fair, cheap theatre, house

Confidence
Unknown
First attested
1753 Discoveries of John Poulter

Etymology

The word for the fair and the cheap theatre is of unknown origin.[1][2][3][10][8] Green's Dictionary of Slang suggests Romani gav (“a town, especially a market town”).[18]

Earliest recorded meaning

A fair: 1753, in the Discoveries of John Poulter, which speaks of selling stolen horses at "Abingdon Gaff".[1][18][2]

Semantic evolution

It was still glossed as a fair in 1811, in the Lexicon Balatronicum.[18] Etymonline and Merriam-Webster Unabridged date the sense "cheap place of amusement" to 1812, and the OED has it from 1819, in Vaux's vocabulary of flash language: any public place of amusement, and then the low class of theatre or music hall.[2][3][1] The penny gaff was such a theatre,[3][10] and the English Dialect Dictionary records it in Scotland, Oxfordshire and London, also for a show at a village fair.[16] From the 1930s the word could mean a house, shop or other building,[1][10] and the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins thinks that this use, for someone's home, probably came from the older sense.[15] From 1947 the OED also has a brothel or a prostitute's room.[1] The slang verb "to gamble, especially by tossing coins" is recorded from 1811;[18] the OED, dating it from 1819, takes it as perhaps from this noun,[1] while Merriam-Webster Unabridged calls it of unknown origin.[3] Farmer and Henley also recorded a verb meaning to perform in a music hall.[18][1]

Timeline

  • 1753 – a fair.[1][18][2]
  • 1811 – verb, to gamble by tossing halfpence.[18] The OED's first record is from 1819.[1]
  • 1812 – a cheap music hall or theatre.[2][3] The OED's first record is from 1819.[1]
  • 1932 – a house, shop or other building.[1]
  • 1947 – a brothel or a prostitute's room.[1]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (British, slang) A house, flat or other building, especially one's home: We all went back to his gaff after the match.[10][1][15]
  2. (British) A cheap theatre or music hall; also called a penny gaff.[3][10][1]
  3. (rare or obsolete) A fair.[10][1]

Verb

  1. (British, slang) To gamble, especially by tossing coins.[3][1]

Word family

  • penny gaff

gaff3 talk, outcry; blow the gaff

Confidence
Unknown
First attested
1812

Etymology

The word for loud or foolish talk, as in “blow the gaff”, is of unknown origin.[1][2][3][10][19] The OED compares gab, Old English gafspræc (“blasphemous or ribald speech”), Scots gaff (“loud, rude talk”) and colloquial French gaffe, a remark that puts one's foot in it.[1][2] Bosworth–Toller glosses the Old English noun as buffoonery, scurrility.[20] Green's Dictionary of Slang queries a link with the fighting cock's spur, the French blunder or the Scots word.[18] Weekley took “blow the gaff” as a replacement for earlier “blow the gab”, due to gaff2.[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the phrase blow the gaff, to let out a secret: 1812 in Etymonline,[2] 1819 in the OED, from Vaux's vocabulary of flash language.[1]

Semantic evolution

The plain noun is recorded later than the phrase: an outcry in C. M. Westmacott's English Spy, dated 1825 by the OED and 1826 by Green's Dictionary of Slang,[1][18] and humbug or nonsense from 1877, in Five Years' Penal Servitude.[1][18] The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins links blow the gaff to the sense "noise or pretence".[15] A verb "to talk, talk loudly, talk nonsense" appears in Australia in 1874, in Marcus Clarke, and "to tease" in the United States in 1879.[18] In American English the phrase stand the gaff, to take harsh treatment or criticism, is first found in George Ade's Artie (1896), with give and take the gaff beside it;[1][6] the OED lists it here, while Barnhart puts it with gaff1.[1][6]

Timeline

  • 1812 – blow the gaff, to let out a secret.[2] The OED's first record is from 1819.[1]
  • 1825 – an outcry, a noise.[1]
  • 1874 – verb, to talk loudly or talk nonsense.[18]
  • 1877 – humbug, nonsense.[1][18]
  • 1896 – stand the gaff, to endure harsh treatment.[1][6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (slang) Loud or idle talk; humbug or nonsense.[3][1][18]
  2. blow the gaff: (slang) to give away a secret.[3][1][10]
  3. the gaff: (US) harsh treatment or criticism, as in stand the gaff, give the gaff and take the gaff.[1][10][6]

Word family

  • blow the gaff
  • stand the gaff

Usage notes

The OED also has a gaff short for gaffer, recorded from 1573 in Tusser,[1] and the English Dialect Dictionary gives it in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire for a master or foreman.[16] In Scots and some northern and Midland dialects gaff also meant a loud laugh, or to laugh loudly, probably imitative in origin.[3][16]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  9. ^ a b c d Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  14. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  15. ^ a b c d Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  18. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  19. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  20. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Gaff.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/gaff. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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