Word.ws English Dictionary

Shouldergate

Shouldergate proper noun: a 1978 controversy around the Pittsburgh Steelers practising in shoulder pads during an off-season period in which such drills were not allowed under NFL rules.

Proper noun

Shouldergate

  1. (slang) A 1978 controversy around the Pittsburgh Steelers practising in shoulder pads during an off-season period in which such drills were not allowed under NFL rules.

Origin of Shouldergate

From shoulder + -gate.

Questions about Shouldergate

What does Shouldergate mean?
Shouldergate means a 1978 controversy around the Pittsburgh Steelers practising in shoulder pads during an off-season period in which such drills were not allowed under NFL rules.
What part of speech is Shouldergate?
Shouldergate is a proper noun.

Words near Shouldergate in the dictionary

  1. shoulderers
  2. shoulderette
  3. shoulderettes
  4. shoulderful
  5. shoulderfuls
  6. Shouldergate
  7. shoulderhon
  8. shoulderhons
  9. shouldering
  10. shoulderings
  11. shoulderless

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Shouldergate (page history and authors). 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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Cite this entry: “Shouldergate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shouldergate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.