A gazette is an

official journal A government gazette (also known as an official gazette, official journal, official newspaper, official monitor or official bulletin) is a periodical publication that has been authorised to publish public or legal notices. It is usually establis ...

, a

newspaper of record A newspaper of record is a major national newspaper with large circulation whose editorial and news-gathering functions are considered authoritative and independent; they are thus "newspapers of record by reputation" and include some of the o ...

, or simply a

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

. In English and French speaking countries, newspaper publishers have applied the name ''Gazette'' since the 17th century; today, numerous weekly and daily newspapers bear the name ''The Gazette''.

Etymology

''Gazette'' is a

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...

from the French language, which is, in turn, a 16th-century permutation of the Italian ''gazzetta'', which is the name of a particular Venetian coin. ''Gazzetta'' became an

epithet An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...

for ''newspaper'' during the early and middle 16th century, when the first Venetian newspapers cost one gazzetta. (Compare with other vernacularisms from publishing lingo, such as the British ''

penny dreadful Penny dreadfuls were cheap popular serial literature produced during the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom. The pejorative term is roughly interchangeable with penny horrible, penny awful, and penny blood. The term typically referred to ...

'' and the American ''

dime novel The dime novel is a form of late 19th-century and early 20th-century U.S. popular fiction issued in series of inexpensive paperbound editions. The term ''dime novel'' has been used as a catchall term for several different but related forms, r ...

''.) This loanword, with its various corruptions, persists in numerous modern languages (

Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the Ear ...

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turkic languag ...

Government gazettes

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, with the 1700 founding of ''The Oxford Gazette'' (which became the ''

London Gazette London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

''), the word ''gazette'' came to indicate a public journal of the government; today, such a journal is sometimes called a

government gazette A government gazette (also known as an official gazette, official journal, official newspaper, official monitor or official bulletin) is a periodical publication that has been authorised to publish public or legal notices. It is usually establis ...

. For some governments, publishing information in a gazette was or is a legal necessity by which official documents

come into force In law, coming into force or entry into force (also called commencement) is the process by which legislation, regulations, treaties and other legal instruments come to have legal force and effect. The term is closely related to the date of this t ...

and enter the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...

. Such is the case for documents published in ''

Royal Thai Government Gazette The ''Royal Thai Government Gazette'' (, ), frequently abbreviated to ''Government Gazette'' (GG) or ''Royal Gazette'' (RG), is the public journal and newspaper of record of Thailand. Laws passed by the government generally come into force after ...

'' (est. 1858), and in ''

The Gazette of India ''The Gazette of India'' is a public journal and an authorised legal document of the Government of India, published weekly by the Department of Publication, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. As a public journal, the ''Gazette'' prints offic ...

'' (est. 1950). The

government of the United Kingdom ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal coat of arms of t ...

requires government gazettes of its member countries. Publication of the ''

Edinburgh Gazette ''The Edinburgh Gazette'' is a newspaper of record (government gazette) of the Government of the United Kingdom, along with ''The London Gazette'' and ''The Belfast Gazette''. It is published by The Stationery Office (TSO), on behalf of His Maje ...

'', the official government newspaper in Scotland, began in 1699. The ''

Dublin Gazette ''The Dublin Gazette'' was the gazette, or official newspaper, of the Irish Executive, Britain's government in Ireland based at Dublin Castle, between 1705 and 1922. It published notices of government business, including Royal Proclamations, the ...

'' of

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

followed in 1705, but ceased when the

Irish Free State The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between th ...

seceded from the United Kingdom in 1922; the ''

Iris Oifigiúil ''Iris Oifigiúil'' (; "''Official Journal''") is the official gazette of the Government of Ireland. It replaced ''The Dublin Gazette'', the gazette of the Dublin Castle administration, on 31 January 1922. ''The Belfast Gazette'' was established ...

'' (Irish: ''Official Gazette'') replaced it. The ''

Belfast Gazette ''The Belfast Gazette'' is a newspaper of record (Government gazette) of the Government of the United Kingdom, along with ''The London Gazette'' and ''The Edinburgh Gazette''. It is published by The Stationery Office (TSO), on behalf of His Majest ...

'' of

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

published its first issue in 1921.

''Gazette'' as a verb

Chiefly in British English, the

transitive verb A transitive verb is a verb that accepts one or more objects, for example, 'cleaned' in ''Donald cleaned the window''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not have objects, for example, 'panicked' in ''Donald panicked''. Transitiv ...

''to gazette'' means "to announce or publish in a gazette"; especially where ''gazette'' refers to a public journal or a newspaper of record. For example, "

Lake Nakuru Lake Nakuru is one of the Rift Valley lakes at an elevation of above sea level. It lies to the south of Nakuru, in the rift valley of Kenya and is protected by Lake Nakuru National Park. The lake's abundance of algae used to attract a vast qu ...

was gazetted as a bird sanctuary in 1960 and upgraded to

National Park A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...

status in 1968."

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

personnel decorations, promotions, and officer commissions are gazetted in the ''

'', the "Official Newspaper of Record for the United Kingdom". ''Gazettal'' (a noun) is the act of gazetting; for example, "the gazettal of the bird sanctuary".

References

External links

* Newspaper terminology Italian inventions Westminster system×××· {{newspaper-stub

Etymology

Government gazettes

''Gazette'' as a verb

See also

References

External links