Word of the Day Archive
Saturday June 19, 1999
gamut \GAM-uht\ , noun:
1. A complete extent or range; as, "a face that expressed a gamut of emotions."
2. The entire scale of musical notes.
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
From gamma, the lowest note of Guido d'Arezzo's "great scale" + ut.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for gamut
