gimmick: [20] Gimmick originally meant ‘dishonest contrivance’ – indeed, in the first known printed reference to it, in George Maine’s and Bruce Grant’s Wise-crack dictionary 1926 (an American publication), it is defined specifically as a ‘device for making a fair game crooked’. The modern sense ‘stratagem for gaining attention’ seems to have come to the fore in the 1940s. The origins of the word are a mystery, although it has been suggested that it began as gimac, an anagram of magic used by conjurers.
gimmick (n.)
1910, American English, perhaps an alteration of gimcrack, or an anagram of magic.
In a hotel at Muscatine, Iowa, the other day I twisted the gimmick attached to the radiator, with the intention of having some heat in my Nova Zemblan booth. ["Domestic Engineering," January 8, 1910]
中文解释
1. perhaps an alteration of gimcrack, or that it began as gimac, an anagram of magic.2. gimmick 音“机密客”→机密客的花招.3. game + trick => *gammick => gimmick.4. game + magic => gimmick.5. 谐音“机迷客、给迷客”。
实用例句
1. He dismissed the event as just a publicity gimmick.
他不理会这件事,只当它是一种宣传手法.
来自《简明英汉词典》
2. The tax cut is widely disparaged by senators from both parties as a budget gimmick.
两个党派的参议员们普遍对作为预算噱头的税收削减嗤之以鼻。
来自柯林斯例句
3. It is just a public relations gimmick.
这只不过是一种公关伎俩。
来自辞典例句
4. The basic gimmick was the distinguishing of one bank from the others.
基本决窍是区分某一银行与其它银行的标志.
来自辞典例句
5. The advertisement is just a gimmick to make consumers buy their products.