goose

Meanings

Noun

• 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 bigger than ducks.
• A female goose (sense 1).
• The flesh of the goose used as food.
• A silly person.
• A tailor's iron, heated in live coals or embers, used to press fabrics.
• A young woman or girlfriend.
• 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

• To sharply poke or pinch the buttocks of (a person).
• To stimulate; to spur.
• To gently accelerate (an automobile or machine), or give repeated small taps on the accelerator.
• Of private-hire taxi drivers, to pick up a passenger who has not booked a cab. This is unauthorised under UK licensing conditions.
• To hiss (a performer) off the stage.

Related

Similar words

• goose iron

Origin

• From Middle English goos, gos, from Old English gōs, from Proto-West Germanic *gans, from Proto-Germanic *gans, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰh₂éns.
• 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, Low German Gans, Dutch gans, German Gans, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian gås, Icelandic gæs, Irish gé, Latin ānser, Latvian zoss, Russian гусь, Albanian gatë, Ancient Greek χήν, Avestan 𐬰𐬁, Sanskrit हंस).
• The tailor's iron is so called from the likeness of the handle to the neck of a goose.
• The verb sense of pinching the buttocks is derived from a goose's inclination to bite at a retreating intruder's hindquarters.