Why this word is great
GAMUT — [Noun] The complete range or scope of something, such as a musical scale or the colors a device can reproduce. From a 16th-century contraction of Medieval Latin gamma ut, from gamma (the Greek letter, used for the musical note G) + ut (the first solfège syllable, later replaced by do), originally denoting the lowest note of the scale. Unlike “spectrum,” which suggests a continuous band where elements bleed into one another, or “scope,” which indicates a field of potential action, “gamut” is a bounded totality, an enumerated series from one fixed point to its opposite. It is the entire chromatic run from the deepest G to the highest treble clef; the printer’s test sheet where every gradation of pigment, from cyan to magenta, is laid out in orderly squares; the full arc of human expression, from whispered grief to shrieking joy, contained within a single, devastating performance. The word is a map of all possible states, a catalogue of existence bounded by two immutable poles.