Word.ws English Dictionary

gaffer

/ɡæfə/US/ɡæfɚ/

gaffer noun: a chief lighting technician for a motion-picture or television production.

Noun (1)

gaffer (plural gaffers)

  1. A chief lighting technician for a motion-picture or television production.
  2. A glassblower.
    • The apprentice carries a gather of glass on the blowpipe to the gaffer's bench […]2003, Jennifer Bosveld, Glass Works, page 18
  3. Someone aboard a boat whose duty is to gaff a (large) fish once the angler has reeled it in.

Noun (2)

gaffer (plural gaffers)

  1. (colloquial) An old person, usually a man.
    • If thou return not, Gammer o'er her pail
      Will sing in sorrow, 'neath the brinded cow,
      And Gaffer sigh over his nut-brown ale […]1845, Thomas Cooper, The Purgatory of Suicides, Book the Fourth, Stanza IX
  2. (UK, informal) The leader of a group or team, such as a boss, foreman, coach, or publican.
    • And you're here to tell me what's what. Just like your bloody gaffer promised.2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 117
  3. A sailor.
  4. (Canada) The baby in the house.

Proper noun capitalized: Gaffer

Gaffer

  1. A surname.

gaffer meaning in Urdu and Malayalam

gaffer in Urdu

بڈھا گنوار

gaffer in Malayalam

manager, manageress, foreman
കങ്കാണി, മേസ്തിരി, പണിക്കാരുടെ മേലാവ്, തൊഴിലാളിമേധാവി, തൊഴിലാളിമൂപ്പൻ, മൂപ്പൻ
elderly man, old man, senior citizen
വൃദ്ധഗ്രാമികൻ, പ്രായംചെന്ന ഗ്രാമീണൻ, ജർജ്ജരൻ, വൃദ്ധൻ, പരിണതൻ, ജരിതൻ

Forms of gaffer

pluralgaffers

Plural of gaffer: gaffers

Origin of gaffer

From gaff (“hook”) + -er. * (cinema): The natural lighting on early film sets was adjusted by opening and closing flaps in the tent cloths, called gaff cloths or gaff flaps. * (glass)

Likely a contraction of godfather, but with the vowels influenced by grandfather. Compare French compère, German Gevatter. Compare also Old English ġefædera (“godfather”), of which some unattested dialectal descendant may have been an influence.

Words formed from gaffer

Phrases with gaffer

Words that rhyme with gaffer

Questions about gaffer

What does gaffer mean?
Gaffer means a chief lighting technician for a motion-picture or television production.
What is gaffer in Urdu?
Gaffer in Urdu is بڈھا گنوار. See Gaffer meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is gaffer?
Gaffer can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce gaffer?
Gaffer is pronounced /ɡæfɚ/ (US).
What is the plural of gaffer?
The plural of gaffer is gaffers.

Words near gaffer in the dictionary

  1. gaffa
  2. gaffas
  3. gaffe
  4. gaffed
  5. gaffed off
  6. gaffer
  7. gaffer grip
  8. gaffer grips
  9. gaffer tape
  10. gaffer tapes
  11. gaffer's tape

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gaffer (page history and authors); Gaffer (page history and authors); gaffer (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); gaffer (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-gaffer.wav.

Cite this entry: “gaffer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gaffer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.