English Explanatory Dictionary

goose

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. Any of various grazing waterfowl of the family Anatidae, which have feathers and webbed feet and are capable of flying, swimming, and walking on land, and which are generally bigger than ducks.
  2. A female goose.
  3. The flesh of the goose used as food.
  4. A silly person.
  5. A tailor's iron, heated in live coals or embers, used to press fabrics.
  6. A young woman or girlfriend.
  7. An old English board game in which players moved counters along a board, earning a double move when they reached the picture of a goose.
verb
  1. To sharply poke or pinch the buttocks, or prod between the buttocks (of a person).
  2. To stimulate; to spur.
  3. To gently accelerate (a vehicle); to give repeated, small taps on the accelerator of (a vehicle); to feather the throttle of (a vehicle).
  4. Of private-hire taxi drivers, to pick up a passenger who has not booked a cab, in violation of UK licensing conditions.
  5. To hiss (a performer) off the stage.
name
  1. A surname.

Pronunciation

gōōs /ɡuːs/ En-uk-goose.ogg /ɡus/ En-us-goose.ogg /ɡʉs/ /ɡʉ͡ws/

Word forms

goose geese gooses goosing goosed

Etymology

PIE word *ǵʰh₂éns From Middle English goos, gos, from Old English gōs, from Proto-West Germanic *gans, from Proto-Germanic *gans, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰh₂éns. Cognates Compare West Frisian goes, North Frisian göis (also Fering-Öömrang dialect North Frisian gus; Sölring dialect North Frisian Guus; Heligoland dialect North Frisian gus), Low German Goos, Gans, Dutch gans, German Gans, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian gås, Icelandic gæs, Irish gé, Latin ānser, Latvian zùoss, Russian гусь (gusʹ), Albanian gatë, Ancient Greek χήν (khḗn), Avestan 𐬰𐬁 (zā), Sanskrit हंस (haṃsá). * The tailor's iron is so called from the likeness of the handle to the neck of a goose.

Synonyms

goose iron

Related words

dove pigeon squab duck duckling eider swan swanling anserine

Derived words

ashy-headed goose a wild goose never laid a tame egg bar-headed goose barnacle goose bean goose black goose blue goose blue-winged goose brand goose brant goose brent goose cackle like a goose cackling goose Canada goose Canadian goose Cape Barren goose channel goose China goose Chinese goose Christmas goose colonial goose common snow goose cook somebody’s goose cook someone's goose cotton pygmy goose deep goose foot domestic goose duck, duck, goose dunter goose dwarf goose Egyptian goose eider goose embergoose ember-goose Emden goose emmer-goose fen goose game of the goose gloomy goose golden goose gooducken goosander goose barnacle gooseberry gooseberrying gooseberryish gooseberrylike goosebumped goose bump goose-bump goosebump goosecap goose club goosedown goose-drownder goose-drowner goose egg goosefish goosefleshed goose-flesher
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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