An embarrassing social mistake or blunder, especially something said or done that is socially inappropriate or tactless.
From French 'gaffe,' possibly from an old French word for a mistake or from the tool gaff (a fishhook). First appeared in English around the 1900s.
The word 'gaffe' became really popular in politics and media in the 20th century—now every time a politician misspeaks, we call it a gaffe, but the word itself is less than 150 years old in English!
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