Word of the Day

Saturday, June 19, 1999

gamut

\GAM-uht\ , noun;

A complete extent or range; as, "a face that expressed a gamut of emotions."

The entire scale of musical notes.

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Quotes:

The...stocks were running...up and down the gamut from $1 to $700 a share.

-- Harper's Magazine, 1883

Spider' and its predecessor run the gamut from the angry I-want-my-body-back screed 'Pig' to 'Hundreds of Sparrows,' a charmingly haunted ode lifted from Luke 12:7

-- "Back in the Sparklehorse Saddle", Washington Post, June 8, 1999

Comments from those testifying at the standing-room-only hearing ran the gamut from polite pleas for an endorsement of a given set of books to condemnations of a review process some said was hasty and flawed.

-- "State to Hold Textbook Firms to New Standards", Los Angeles Times, June 11, 1999

Origin:

From gamma, the lowest note of Guido d'Arezzo's "great scale" + ut.