Widget (economics)

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This article is about marketable items. For the small web applications used in advertising, see web widget. For other uses, see widget.

A widget is a placeholder name for an object or, more specifically, a mechanical or other manufactured device.

1 Etymology
2 Usage
3 See also
4 References

Etymology

The word occurs in the 1924 comedic play, Beggar on Horseback (1924), written by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. The hero, a struggling composer, must choose between creating music that stimulates his soul but earns no money or earning a soul-deadening living in a "widget" factory. "Widget" is never explained, but clearly it is some mechanical product without artistic or spiritual value. ^[1]

Usage

"Widget" is frequently used in texts and speech, especially in the context of economics, to indicate a hypothetical "any-product." Companies in such texts will frequently be given names such as "ABC Widgets" or "Acme Widget Corp." to indicate that the particular business of the hypothetical company is not relevant to the topic of discussion (e.g. [1]).