WHAT ARE GADGET?

ANSWER:A gadget is a small [1] tool such as a machine
that has a particular function, but is often
thought of as a novelty . Gadgets are sometimes
referred to as gizmos.
    HISTORY
The origins of the word "gadget" trace back to
the 19th century. According to the [Oxford
English Dictionary], there is anecdotal (not
necessarily true) evidence for the use of
"gadget" as a placeholder name for a technical
item whose precise name one can't remember
since the 1850s; with Robert Brown's 1886
book Spunyarn and Spindrift, A sailor boy’s log
of a voyage out and home in a China tea-
clipper containing the earliest known usage in
print. [2] The etymology of the word is disputed.
A widely circulated story holds that the word
gadget was "invented" when Gaget, Gauthier &
Cie, the company behind the repoussé
construction of the Statue of Liberty (1886),
made a small-scale version of the monument
and named it after their firm; however this
contradicts the evidence that the word was
already used before in nautical circles, and the
fact that it did not become popular, at least in
the USA, until after World War I. [2] Other
sources cite a derivation from the French
gâchette which has been applied to various
pieces of a firing mechanism, or the French
gagée , a small tool or accessory. [2]
The October 1918 issue of Notes and Queries
contains a multi-article entry on the word
"gadget"

             APPLICATION GADGET
In the software industry, "Gadget" refers to
computer programs that provide services
without needing an independent application to
be launched for each one, but instead run in an
environment that manages multiple gadgets.
There are several implementations based on
existing software development techniques, like
JavaScript, form input, and various image
formats.
        WINDOWS   DEFINITION
The X11 [6] windows system 'Intrinsics' [7] also
defines gadgets and their relationship to
widgets (buttons, labels etc.). The gadget was a
windowless widget which was supposed to
improve the performance of the application by
reducing the memory load on the X server. A
gadget would use the Window id of its parent
widget and had no children of its own
It is not known whether other software
companies are explicitly drawing on that
inspiration when featuring the word in names of
their technologies or simply referring to the
generic meaning. The word widget is older in
this context. In the movie " Back to School " from
1986 by Alan Metter, there is a scene where an
economics professor Dr. Barbay, wants to start
for educational purposes a fictional company
that produces "widgets: It's a fictional product."