What does "gamergate" mean?

A worker insect that can become capable of reproducing when the queen has died.

How do you pronounce "gamergate"?

Pronounced //ˈɡæm.ə.ɡeɪt//.

//ˈɡæm.ə.ɡeɪt// name, noun

name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A worker insect that can become capable of reproducing when the queen has died.
"Recent studies indicate that queenless societies can have either one or several gamergates per colony, which reveals that reproductive inhibition can occur despite the absence of the queen caste."

Proper Noun

1
A controversy that started in 2014, and happened primarily online, around issues of sexism and progressivism in video game culture and harassment of women in the video game industry.
"Those who experienced the harassment firsthand warned that if not taken seriously, the behaviors underlying Gamergate would fester."
2
Alternative letter-case form of Gamergate. alt-of

"GamerGate and its descendants were and are everything that reactionaries claim "cancel culture" is."

Etymology 1

From Ancient Greek γάμος (gámos, “union, marriage”) + ergate.

Etymology 2

From gamer + -gate.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.