"-gate" meaning in English

See -gate in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Suffix

Etymology: Back-formation from Watergate, an American political scandal from 1972–1974 which led to resignation of president Richard Nixon. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the suffix first appeared in a 1973 article in the National Lampoon magazine which referenced a rumoured "Volgagate". The suffix was promoted by New York Times columnist William Safire, who coined several -gate words beginning in 1974. Etymology templates: {{back-form|en|Watergate}} Back-formation from Watergate Head templates: {{head|en|suffix|cat2=|cat3=|head=|id=}} -gate, {{en-suffix}} -gate
  1. Combined with a relevant place, person, activity, etc. to form the names of scandals. Tags: morpheme Related terms: -ghazi Translations (component in names of scandals): -гейт (-gejt) [masculine] (Bulgarian), 門 /门 (mén) (Chinese Mandarin), -gate [masculine] (French), -gate [neuter] (German), -opoli [feminine] (Italian), 게이트 (geiteu) (Korean), -lão [masculine] (Portuguese)
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Etymology number: 1

Suffix

Etymology: From Old English geat. Etymology templates: {{inh|en|ang|geat}} Old English geat Head templates: {{head|en|suffix|cat2=|cat3=|head=|id=}} -gate, {{en-suffix}} -gate
  1. Used to form place names. Tags: morpheme
    Sense id: en--gate-en-suffix-I9TfVX0H Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 3 entries, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 28 72 Disambiguation of Pages with 3 entries: 25 75 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 26 74
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Etymology number: 2
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            "2": "門",
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          "expansion": "→ Chinese: 門 /门 (mén) (semantic loan)",
          "name": "desc"
        }
      ],
      "text": "→ Chinese: 門 /门 (mén) (semantic loan)"
    },
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            "2": "-gate",
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          "expansion": "→ French: -gate",
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      "text": "→ French: -gate"
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          "expansion": "→ German: -gate",
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      "text": "→ German: -gate"
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      "templates": [
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          "args": {
            "1": "ko",
            "2": "게이트",
            "bor": "1"
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          "expansion": "→ Korean: 게이트 (geiteu)",
          "name": "desc"
        }
      ],
      "text": "→ Korean: 게이트 (geiteu)"
    }
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          "ref": "2022 March 30, Tatum Hunter, “How to leave a bad online review without being a jerk”, in The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-03-30:",
          "text": "Back in college, [Maddi] Filliater said she tweeted at a local sandwich shop about some alleged brown lettuce, and the business responded angrily: Why didn't she bring up the problem in person instead of attacking them on the Internet? Her friends refer to the incident as \"LettuceGate.\"",
          "type": "quote"
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      ],
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        "Combined with a relevant place, person, activity, etc. to form the names of scandals."
      ],
      "id": "en--gate-en-suffix-3WBZkifZ",
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        [
          "scandals",
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        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "-ghazi"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "morpheme"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "bg",
          "lang": "Bulgarian",
          "roman": "-gejt",
          "sense": "component in names of scandals",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "-гейт"
        },
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "mén",
          "sense": "component in names of scandals",
          "word": "門 /门"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "component in names of scandals",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
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          "code": "de",
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          "sense": "component in names of scandals",
          "tags": [
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          ],
          "word": "-gate"
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          "code": "it",
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          "sense": "component in names of scandals",
          "tags": [
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          ],
          "word": "-opoli"
        },
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          "lang": "Korean",
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          "sense": "component in names of scandals",
          "word": "게이트"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "component in names of scandals",
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            "masculine"
          ],
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        }
      ]
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  "wikipedia": [
    "List of \"-gate\" scandals and controversies",
    "New York Times",
    "Oxford English Dictionary",
    "Richard Nixon",
    "William Safire"
  ],
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      "text": "→ German: -gate"
    },
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        {
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      "text": "→ Korean: 게이트 (geiteu)"
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          "text": "Back in college, [Maddi] Filliater said she tweeted at a local sandwich shop about some alleged brown lettuce, and the business responded angrily: Why didn't she bring up the problem in person instead of attacking them on the Internet? Her friends refer to the incident as \"LettuceGate.\"",
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      "sense": "component in names of scandals",
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      "roman": "mén",
      "sense": "component in names of scandals",
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      "sense": "component in names of scandals",
      "tags": [
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      "sense": "component in names of scandals",
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      ],
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    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "component in names of scandals",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "-opoli"
    },
    {
      "code": "ko",
      "lang": "Korean",
      "roman": "geiteu",
      "sense": "component in names of scandals",
      "word": "게이트"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "component in names of scandals",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "-lão"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "List of \"-gate\" scandals and controversies",
    "New York Times",
    "Oxford English Dictionary",
    "Richard Nixon",
    "William Safire"
  ],
  "word": "-gate"
}

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Download raw JSONL data for -gate meaning in English (4.7kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-02-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-20 using wiktextract (05fdf6b and 9dbd323). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.