The story
- Medieval Latin · derived fromgamma ut
- English todaygamut
1520s, original sense “lowest note of musical scale”, contraction of 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. Meaning later extended to mean all the notes of a scale, and then more generally any complete range.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.