gaffe

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noun \ ˈgaf \

Definition of gaffe

1 :a social or diplomatic blunder

committed an embarrassing gaffe when he mispronounced her name

2 :a noticeable mistake

Kwan did not fall today, as she had in Friday's short program, a gaffe that left her in fourth place.
—Christopher Clarey

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Examples of gaffe in a Sentence

He realized that he had committed an awful gaffe when he mispronounced her name.
committed a huge gaffe when she started drinking from the finger bowl

Recent Examples of gaffe from the Web

An emphasis this week will be to clean up numerous communication gaffes.

— tom krasovic, sandiegouniontribune.com, "No Philip Rivers, no good," 20 Aug. 2017
But Muller's gaffe could leave them short a man for some time still.

— SI.com, "VIDEO: Hamburg Winger Hilariously Injures Himself With Absurd Goal Celebration," 19 Aug. 2017
Prince Philip, also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, has been lauded for his perseverance and unwavering sense of duty, while weathering criticism for being gaffe-prone and blunt.

— dan bilefsky, New York Times, "Prince Philip Makes His Last Solo Appearance, After 65 Years in the Public Eye," 2 Aug. 2017
His administration has since been battered by a scandal over suspicions of favoritism to a friend's business, verbal gaffes by cabinet ministers and concerns about Abe's intentions to revise the constitution.

— Time, "Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Will Reshuffle His Cabinet in the Wake of Plunging Ratings," 9 July 2017
Obama's Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, quickly seized on the gaffe as evidence Obama was concealing a secret agenda for his second term.

— josh lederman, The Christian Science Monitor, "US and Russian leaders meet and the world watches," 7 July 2017
All the components were in place to ensure a smooth, uneventful, gaffe-free trip.

— jay willis, GQ, "Watching Donald Trump Suck at Handshake Diplomacy Never Gets Old," 6 July 2017
The prime minister’s grip over the Liberal Democratic Party had already been loosened before the vote by a series of scandals and gaffes that led to a plunge in his approval ratings.

— isabel reynolds, Bloomberg.com, "Abe's Most Divisive Policies Face Hurdles After Tokyo Defeat," 3 July 2017
Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike’s new party, the Tokyoites First party, trounced LDP candidates as Tokyo voters showed dissatisfaction with Abe over recent scandals and gaffes.

— elaine kurtenbach, The Seattle Times, "Japan economic surveys show recovery in manufacturing," 2 July 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'gaffe.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of gaffe

borrowed from French, probably a sense development of gaffe ¹gaff

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 1909

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gaffe Synonyms

Synonyms

familiarity, faux pas, gaff, impropriety, indiscretion, solecism

Antonyms

amenity, attention, civility, courtesy, formality, gesture, pleasantry

Related Words

blunder, error, flub, fumble, goof, lapse, miscue, misstep, mistake, oversight, slip, slipup, stumble; discourtesy, incivility, offense (or offence); boner, howler; foul-up, muff; misapprehension, miscalculation, misconception, misjudgment, misstatement, misunderstanding

Near Antonyms

form, manners, mores, proprieties

Other Government and Politics Terms

agent provocateur, agitprop, autarky, cabal, egalitarianism, federalism, hegemony, plenipotentiary, popular sovereignty, socialism

GAFFE Defined for English Language Learners

gaffe

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noun

Definition of gaffe for English Language Learners

: a mistake made in a social situation

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See words that rhyme with gaffe Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for gaffe Spanish Central: Translation of gaffe Nglish: Translation of gaffe for Spanish speakers

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gaffe

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