Gait

How to spell gait

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce gait

What does gait mean?

1. nounA person's or animal's manner of walking or moving on foot.

Gait in a sentence

• The physiotherapist studied his uneven gait before recommending exercises.

• A steady, confident gait can make a real difference in a job interview.

Where does gait come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This word comes from the Old Norse 'gata', meaning a way, road, or path, which entered northern English during the period of Scandinavian settlement and gave the everyday word 'gate' as well. In its earliest English use, the spelling 'gate' could mean simply 'a way of going' or 'a journey', and that older meaning survives in northern dialect phrases. Over time the sense narrowed from 'the way one travels' to 'the manner in which a person or animal moves on foot', and writers adopted the distinct spelling 'gait' to keep that meaning separate from the barrier we now call a 'gate'. The two words are therefore close cousins from the same root, which is exactly why they sound identical and trip writers up. The horse-riding vocabulary (walk, trot, canter, gallop) cemented 'gait' as the technical term for a pattern of movement by the 1600s.

How the word is built

• gait (a single root word meaning a manner of going or walking; a dialectal spelling variant of 'gate' in its older sense of 'way' or 'path')

Words that sound like gait

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• gate: A hinged or sliding barrier that closes an opening in a wall, fence, or hedge.