Whats a widget?

Question

Whats a widget?

Answer 1

From "Back to School" (1986):

Thorton Mellow: "What's a widget?"                      

Prof. Barbay: "It's a fictional product. It doesn't matter."                  

Thorton Mellon: "Doesn't matter. Tell that to the bank."

Answer 2

It's the holy grail for inventors, the perfect invention that can be manufactured for next to nothing, fills a long-standing need, and is used by millions.

And until the late 1970s, it generally referred to nothing in particular, except the little part that does what you want it to do.

Then some smart-aleck ruined the word forever by actually having the foresight to brand his product -- officially with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office -- a Widget. And did his device deserve the name? In my opinion, no. It was just a cheap little hunk of plastic that held a single-edge razor blade that you could use to scrape and cut. He didn't even develop a new product, his was just a cheaper version of the metal razor blade scrapers already available at the time.

But from then on, inventors around the world had to find a different catch-all name for their doo-dads. Some picked 'gadget' some picked 'gizmo.' But it was never the same, the shade of meaning inherent in 'widget' was irreplaceable.

Now, if you go to the hardware store to ask for a widget, they'll hand you some dumb plastic paint scraper. But back in the days ... you would be handed the newest and greatest ingenious invention to enter the store. A self-leveling drill head, a combination spark-plug gapper bottle opener, a hook to pull threads off of the roller of your vaccuum cleaner, a contraption to straighten the spades on your electrical plug, a tiny expanding vice to remove broken light bulb connectors from their sockets, a clip of plastic to hold together socks in the washing machine, a disposable divot clamp for the golf course, a spinner to keep phone cords from tangling, a tiny buffer to recondition windshield wipers, whatever.

Ahh, the good old days.

True, Apple Computer is trying to recapture the name for the little desktop applets in their operating system, but I fear it's hopeless. Long after desktop computers are gone and we all have Firewire-enabled sunglasses, they'll still sell those dumb little plastic razor blade scrapers in the hardware store. The word is gone for good I'm afraid.

And about ten years ago, I had genuine hope that it wouldn't come to this ... men who used single edged razor blades were an endangered species, it seems we all switched to either disposables or electric or all just tried for the wicket 'stache. If the razor blades would disappear, I reasoned, then so would the cursed Widget-brand scraper. But alas, the razor manufacturers saw what was happening and just started making ever cheaper single-edge blades for the sole purpose of scraping glass.

The window of opportunity is gone ... a thousand years into the future, when you hop into your flying car and zip over to the Moon to pick up some Lunar-grown Arugala, you'll make a stop in the hardware store in that cute little town by the dusty shores of the Sea of Tranquility, and you'll ask for something to scrape some bird-dookie off of the micrometeorite shield on the front of your new ride, and the hardware gal will ask you "orange or green?" and then hand you that cursed chunk of Widget-brand plastic scraper. You'll pay 50 or 60 thousand dollars for it, and never realize the agony that the horrendous thing has caused for generations of inventors back in the day when cars still needed gasoline.

Answer 3

its a generic term to describe ANY object.

often used in programming, marketing, and similar examples

Answer 4

This is a term used as a placeholder for an actual product name.

Also its a comic book character, first appearing in uncanny xmen 101. Widget as it turned out (note: comic books tend to change timelines to fit thier current story needs) to be some future version of Kitty Pryde aka Shadowcat which was revealed xman 141 and 142, and expanded upon in the Excalibur series.

Wow, am I a total comic book junkie or what?

Answer 5

a widget is a fictional product, usually used in the context of business education.

it can also be a small piece of software, such as apple widgets or google widgets.

Answer 6

1. a small mechanical device, as a k**b or switch, esp. one whose name is not known or cannot be recalled; gadget: a row of widgets on the instrument panel.  

2. something considered typical or representative, as of a manufacturer's products: the widgets coming off the assembly line.

Answer 7

its a little device in the bottom of bottles cans and glasses

to keep fizzy drinks fizzy and stops beer going flat

Answer 8

It's an imaginary example of something businesses sell.  Kind of like the variables "x," and "y," in math.  See the movie "Back to School" with Rodney Dangerfield.

Answer 9

Widgets are the same things as Knick-knacks, except they are for tactile purposes. (Something to fumble in your hands to deter boredom)

Answer 10

I agree with the Guinness answer.

Answer 11

A widget, if you are talking about the ones on bebo, is like a little  picture or slide show to put on your page. It's basically a decoration.

Answer 12

is it a white midget that acts black?

Widget....

Answer 13

It's a llittle rubber wedge that goes under a door to keep it open, and no that's not called a door stop,  it's called a widget.

Answer 14

On apple computers, it's mini programs that you can use to play games, find out information, or do stuff.

Answer 15

think its a sort of ball thing that you get out of a can of bitter or something like that

Answer 16

It's a thingamabob, a doohickey, a jigger, a doodad, a gizmo, a contraption, a device of some sort.

Answer 17

Once upon a time there was a scraper to scrape paint off windows called the widget.

Generaly when someone talks about shipping n widgets, They use the word widget to represent can openers, cars, refrigerators, etc.

Anything can be called a widget.

Answer 18

Any cool little invention or product or some other dohicky that their too lazy to come up with a name for, they call it a widget. So your gonna have to be more specific to get answers to this question

Answer 19

It is a unit of measurement. It is used in hypothetical economics theories.  A college professor might say, "company A produces 200,000 widgets while company B produces 190,000 widgets with the the same labor capacity".

Answer 20

A widget is a device that was created to keep the nitrogen in Dark beers like Guinness it improves the flavor and keeps the product from getting stale in the canned form . Some one made some money on that one........

Answer 21

don't know