A gaff can be a pole with a hook used to land a fish. A gaffe is an embarrassing mistake, especially a remark or action that lands badly in a social or public setting.
Decide whether you mean a tool or a mistake
- Gaff. The deckhand rinsed the gaff and stowed it under the bench. The gaff is a piece of fishing equipment.
- Gaffe. At the awards dinner, the host made a gaffe by congratulating the wrong team. The mistake embarrassed the host in front of the audience.
Recognize the idiom
In the chiefly British expression blow the gaff, the phrase means to give away a secret. For an embarrassing mistake in everyday writing, choose gaffe.
Gaff and gaffe are homophones. For another pair where the spelling changes what the word means, see Altar vs. Alter.
