gamut

1520s, original sense “lowest note of musical scale”, from 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.[1] Meaning later extended to mean all the notes of a scale, and then more generally any complete range.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡæm.ət/, /ˈɡæm.ɪt/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -æmɪt

gamut (plural gamuts)

1. A (normally) complete range.
   • c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     I must begin with rudiments of Art / To teach you gamoth in a briefer sort, - -
     Bian. Why, I am past my gamouth long agoe.

   • 1922, Virginia Woolf, chapter 2, in Jacob’s Room:

     The entire gamut of the view's changes should have been known to her; its winter aspect, spring, summer and autumn; how storms came up from the sea; how the moors shuddered and brightened as the clouds went over; she should have noted the red spot where the villas were building; and the criss-cross of lines where the allotments were cut...

   • 1933?, Dorothy Parker, review of Katharine Hepburn in the Broadway play The Lake

     She delivered a striking performance that ran the gamut of emotions, from A to B.

   • 1960 December, “New reading on railways”, in Trains Illustrated, page 776:

     THE LONDON BRIGHTON & SOUTH COAST RAILWAY. By C. Hamilton Ellis. Ian Allan. 30s. [...] In the course of its pages the author runs through the whole gamut of the locomotives that have during the period under review run on the rails of the L.B. & S.C. and its forebears.

2. (music) All the notes in a musical scale.
3. All the colours that can be presented by a device such as a monitor or printer.

• run the gamut

• ut

• “gamut”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *ʀamut.

gamut

1. root

From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *ʀamut.

gamut

1. root

From Proto-Philippine *ʀamut, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *ʀamut (“fibrous roots”).

gamut

1. root (of a plant)

From Proto-Philippine *ʀamut, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *ʀamut (“fibrous roots”).

gamut

1. medicine

From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *ʀamut.

gamut

1. root

From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *ʀamut.

gamut

1. root

From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *ʀamut.

gamut

1. root

gamut

1. root

From Proto-Philippine *ʀamut, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *ʀamut (“fibrous roots”).

gamút

1. root (of a plant)