Gear

How to spell gear

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce gear

What does gear mean?

1. nounThe equipment, tools, or clothing needed for a particular activity.
2. nounA toothed wheel that meshes with another to transmit motion, or one of the speed settings it produces in a vehicle.
3. verbTo adapt or design something so that it suits a particular purpose or audience.

Gear in a sentence

• noun

  The climbers packed their gear before the early start.

• noun

  The mechanic replaced a worn gear inside the engine.

• verb

  The company will gear its products toward younger buyers.

• noun

  All the camping gear is stored in the garage.

• noun

  She shifted into a lower gear on the steep hill.

• verb

  Trainers can gear each session to the needs of the group.

Where does gear come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Gear traces back to the Old Norse word gervi (also spelled gørvi), which meant equipment, dress, or gear; it described whatever a person needed to be properly outfitted for a task. The Old Norse term sprang from a Proto-Germanic root meaning to make ready or prepare, and a closely related native English form, gearwe, meant clothing, ornament, or equipment. Scandinavian settlers reinforced the word in northern England, and Middle English settled on the spelling gere before it became the modern gear. The meaning broadened over the centuries from clothing and personal equipment to the toothed wheels of a machine, a sense that took hold once mechanical devices became common. The neat, four-letter spelling rarely trips adults; the only mild snag is the ear vowel, which sounds like the unrelated words here and ear but is spelled g-e-a-r.

How the word is built

• gear (single root from Old Norse gervi: equipment, dress); no prefix or suffix in the base form