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): (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɡæfɚ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɡæfə/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æfə(ɹ)

gaffer (plural gaffers)

1. (film) A chief lighting technician for a motion-picture or television production.
2. A glassblower.
   • 2003, Jennifer Bosveld, Glass Works, page 18:

     The apprentice carries a gather of glass on the blowpipe to the gaffer's bench […]

3. Someone aboard a boat whose duty is to gaff a (large) fish once the angler has reeled it in.

• gaffer grip
• gaffer tape

Likely a contraction of godfather, but with the vowels influenced by grandfather. Compare French compère, German Gevatter.

gaffer (plural gaffers)

1. (colloquial) An old man.
   • 1845, Thomas Cooper, The Purgatory of Suicides, Book the Fourth, Stanza IX:

     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 […]

2. (UK, informal) The leader of a group or team, such as a boss, foreman, coach, or publican.
   • 2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 117:

     And you're here to tell me what's what. Just like your bloody gaffer promised.

3. A sailor.
4. (Canada) The baby in the house.

• See also Thesaurus:old man

• gammer

• “gaffer”, in OED Online  ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1989.

• Graeff

From gaffe +‎ -er. Sense of gaffer-taping from English gaffer tape.

• (verb): IPA^(key): /ɡa.fe/,

  Audio:

  (file)

• (noun): IPA^(key): /ɡa.fœʁ/

gaffer

1. to make a gaffe; to mess up; botch up
2. to gaffer tape

gaffer m (plural gaffers)

1. gaffer tape

   Alternative form: gaffeur

• “gaffer”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• Audio (Jersey):

  (file)

gaffer

1. (Jersey) to grasp

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡafɛr/

gaffer

1. Soft mutation of caffer.