Category: Word of the Day – G

ETYMOLOGY
from Scots gumple (to be in a bad mood, to sulk, and as a noun, a fit of the sulks) + feist (found in other formations of similar meaning, e.g. bumple feist (the sulks), amplefeist (a sulky mood)) + -ed

EXAMPLE
“…Aweel, aweel,’ said Peter Peebles, totally unabashed by the repulse, ‘e’en as ye like, a wilful man maun hae his way; but,’ he added, stooping down and endeavouring to gather the spilled snuff from the polished floor, ‘I canna afford to lose my sneeshing for a’ that ye are gumple-foisted wi’ me‘….”

From: Redgauntlet: A Tale of the Eighteenth Century
By Sir Walter Scott, 1824

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek γελαστικός (gelastikos), from γελᾶν (to laugh)

EXAMPLE
“…or even exempt it from his unexcepting Censure and Undutiful Reflection against that Right Reverend Father of our Church, not without a Gelastick deference to so great a name, no more than without as high a Conception as possibly conceivable of the unappearing performances of so learned a Prelate…”

From: Athenae Britannicae:
Or, A Critical History of the Oxford and Cambridge Writers and Writings
By Myles Davies, 1716

ETYMOLOGY
from gutter + lane

EXAMPLE
“…All goeth down Gutter-lane (A small Lane in the City otherwise Guthurum lane.) Appliable to great Gluttons and Drunkards…”

From: Anglorum Speculum
By George Sandys, 1684

ETYMOLOGY
perhaps a variation of jimp (slender, slim, delicate, graceful, neat)

EXAMPLE
“…Hys wifis, Toppa and Partelot, hym by,
As byrd al tyme that hantis bigamy.
The pantyt povn, pasand with plomys gym,
Kest vp his taill, a provd plesand quheill rym,
Yschrowdyt in hys fedrame brycht and scheyn,
Schapand the prent of Argus hundreth eyn…”

From: Virgil’s Aeneid translated into Scottish verse
By Gavin Douglas, 1513

ETYMOLOGY
from Old Norse glupna (to be downcast);
a root of identical form appears in Old Frisian glûpa, Middle Low German glûpen (to lie in wait for), Dutch gluipen (to watch slily, to sneak), Old Swedish glupa (to gape, swallow), Swedish glupande, Danish glubende (ravenous, fierce);
whether there is any etymological connection is uncertain

EXAMPLE (for vb. 1)
“…Quen [he] þar-of son had a sight,
Al was he gloppend for þat light…”

From: Cursor Mundi
(The Cursur of the World)
A Northumbrian Poem of the XIVth Century

ETYMOLOGY
from French gobe-mouches
(from gober (to swallow) + mouche (fly))

PRONUNCIATION
GOB-moosh

EXAMPLE
“…Such a representation the gobes mouches of Florence might have readily magnified into a change of religion.…”

From: Narrative Of A Residence In Algiers
By Edward Blaquière, translation of Filippo Pananti, 1818

ETYMOLOGY
from Old French gorel, gorreau (a pig, hog);
related to Old French gore (sow): of unknown origin.

EXAMPLE (for n. 1.)
“…Crampe that comyth of replycyon fallyth ofte to fatte men and flesshly and well fedde and gorrelles…”

From: Bartholomew de Glanville’s De Proprietatibus Rerum,
Translated by John Trevisa, 1495

ETYMOLOGY
from gad (used to express strong feeling) + zooks (origin unknown)

EXAMPLE
“…Buz. Ile first take tother cup, and then out with’t altogether—And now it comes—If my Mistress do bring him home a bastard, she’s but even with him.

Nat. He has one I warrant. Has he cadzooks?…”

From: The English Moor or the Mock-Marriage,
in Five Nevv Playes, viz. The English Moor. The Love-sick Court. Covent Garden Eeeded. The New Academy. The Queen and Concubine,
By Richard Brome, 1659

ETYMOLOGY
from Goemagot, the greatest of the British giants, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth;
altered after the biblical names Gog and Magog

EXAMPLE
“…Gogmagog was a geant · suiþe gret & strong
Vor aboute an twenti vet · me seiþ he was long …”

From: The Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, c1325

ETYMOLOGY
? possibly connected with gig (an eccentric person)

EXAMPLE
“…Hereupon it fell out, after the expiring of a scantling of Weeks, that Master Carvel became as jealous as a Tygar, and entred into a very profound suspition, that his new-married Gixy did keep a Buttock-stirring with others: to prevent which inconveniency, he did tell her many tragical Stories of the total Ruine of several Kingdoms by Adultery…”

From: The Third Book of the Heroick Deeds and Sayings of the good Pantagruel.
By Francois Rabelais
Translated by Thomas Urquhart, 1693