Link Centre Dictionary

gamut

ga·mut

UK/ˈɡæm.ət/ US/ˈɡæm.ɪt/ uncommon

noun

1.

a complete extent or range: "a face that expressed a gamut of emotions"

2.

the entire scale of musical notes

Origin

1520s, original sense “lowest note of musical scale”, contraction of Medieval Latin gamma ut, from gamma (“Greek letter, corresponding to the musical note G”) + ut (“first solfège syllable, now replaced by do”). In modern terms, “G do” - the first note of the G scale. Meaning later extended to mean all the notes of a scale, and then more generally any complete range.

Phrases

  • run the gamut

Related words

Broader terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.