Word: gadget
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...Medici, lavish ruler of Florence. But Leonardo served himself miserably: he was ridden by a perfectionism which prevented him from finishing a work. Even the patient Lorenzo finally let his artist go-to Milan, where he served the great Duke Ludovico Sforza. There Leonardo ranged through "interior decoration, gadget design, city planning, court painting and sculpture. His painter's mind was increasingly and almost ruinously engaged by intellectual curiosity about the physical world. Leonardo ended by turning from art to science. His very painting was a scientific search-the plants and rocks in the background of the Portrait...
...suburban New Rochelle, N.Y. a contract was duly signed and sealed for 15,000 sq. ft. of floor space in a small factory heretofore devoted to the manufacture of surgincal instruments. There a score of skilled workers will turn out a new life-saving gadget for converting sea water into drinking water about which almost the only uncensorable facts are 1) that its name is Sunstill and 2) that the Army Air Forces is buying some sets...
Later, Boolba developed his own remote control circuit for tuning radios at long distance with push buttons "It's for lazy people," says Boolba, but he has made several large installations, for special purposes. Still, the thought of his unexploited first "lazy man's gadget" rankles him whenever he tunes his own push-button control FM-AM model...
...Eureka! . . . down at Manny Vezie's Gallery of Shoe Reconstruction, we have a contraption priced at $7.50 that cannot be worth a shiny steel penny. It is useless, badly designed, overpriced . . . what it is supposed to be is a shoe shining set. . . . It's a silly gadget. We promise you you don't want...
Gizmo-a term of universal significance, capable of meaning "gadget," "stuff," "thing," "whozis" or almost anything else the speaker wants...