gamut

1520s, original sense “lowest note of musical scale”, from Medieval Latin gamma ut, from gamma (“Greek letter, corresponding to the musical note G”) + ut (“first solfège syllable, now replaced by do”). In modern terms, “G do” – the first note of the G scale[1]. Meaning later extended to mean all the notes of a scale, and then more generally any complete range.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡæm.ət/ or IPA^(key): /ˈɡæm.ɪt/

gamut (plural gamuts)

1. A (normally) complete range.
   • 1933?, Dorothy Parker, review of Katharine Hepburn in the Broadway play The Lake

     She delivered a striking performance that ran the gamut of emotions, from A to B.

   • 1922, Virginia Woolf, chapter 2, in Jacob’s Room:

     The entire gamut of the view's changes should have been known to her; its winter aspect, spring, summer and autumn; how storms came up from the sea; how the moors shuddered and brightened as the clouds went over; she should have noted the red spot where the villas were building; and the criss-cross of lines where the allotments were cut...

2. (music) All the notes in the musical scale.
3. All the colours available to a device such as a monitor or printer.

• run the gamut

• ut

gamut

1. root