gaffe

noun

ˈgaf 

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

Synonyms

• familiarity
• faux pas
• gaff
• impropriety
• indiscretion
• solecism

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 on the Web

As part of this unconventional arrangement, CBS agrees to forever do things the Augusta way, which means that the booth talent forever navigates a minefield of potential lexical gaffes. —Anthony Crupi, Sportico.com, 11 Apr. 2025

Though this group was on for two Florida goals, the first one should’ve been a relatively easy stop for Woll, and the second was the result of a Morgan Rielly gaffe. —Nick Ashbourne, New York Times, 9 Apr. 2025

Cabrera also hustled into second on an Oneil Cruz error, the first of several Pirates gaffes in the game. —Gary Phillips, New York Daily News, 4 Apr. 2025

Four minutes is also plenty of time for other social media users to notice a gaffe, and roast the user who made the error. —Kevin Sabet, Newsweek, 23 Mar. 2025

Word History

Etymology

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

First Known Use

1909, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for gaffe

• calf
• chaff
• gaff
• graff
• graph
• haff
• half
• laugh
• raff
• staff
• staph
• autograph

Kids Definition

gaffe

noun

ˈgaf 

: a noticeable mistake especially of manners