goose

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A large water bird with webbed feet and a long neck, bigger than a duck.

   A flock of geese landed on the pond.

2. 2
   noun

   The meat of a goose, eaten as food.

   They roasted a goose for the holiday dinner.

3. 3
   noun

   A silly or foolish person.

   Don't be such a goose, of course I'm joking.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Goose is an ancient word traceable through several European languages to Indo-European. Its long history in English has produced compounds and figurative uses such as goose-step, goose egg for a score of zero, and the verb goose.

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…

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External links

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