A gamepad is the small machine you hold with both hands to play a video game. It usually has buttons under your thumbs, two little sticks you push in any direction, and often triggers under your fingers. People also call it a controller, and that word is a bit wider: a controller can be a gamepad, a racing wheel, or something else. A joystick is mostly one stick; a gamepad is the whole thing in your hands. You see gamepads with home consoles and, more and more, with computers. In shops and among players it is an everyday word, not a fancy one. Though actually, some people say “pad” for short once everyone already knows they mean the game one.