Emily Dickinson Lexicon

GOOS'AN-DER, n.

A migratory fowl of the genus Mergus, the diver or plunger; called also merganser.

GOOSE, n. [goos. plur; Geese. Sax. gos; Sw. gås; Dan. gaas; Arm. goas; W. gwyz; Russ. gus; Ir. gedh, or geadh; Pers. قَاْز kaz. The G. and D. is gans, but whether the same word or not, let the reader judge. The Ch. אוז or אוזא, and the corresponding Arabic and Syriac words, may possibly be the same word, the Europeans prefixing g in the Celtic manner.]

1. A well known aquatic fowl of the genus Anas; but the domestic goose lives chiefly on land, and feeds on grass. The soft feathers are used for beds, and the quills for pens. The wild goose is migratory.
2. A tailor's smoothing iron, so called from its handle, which resembles the neck of a goose.

GOOSE'BER-RY, n. [goos'berry. In Ger. kräuselbeere, from kraus, crisp; D. kruisbes, from kruis, a cross; L. grossula; W. grwys, from rhwys, luxuriant. The English word is undoubtedly corrupted from crossberry, grossberry, or gorseberry; a name taken from the roughness of the shrub. See Cross and Gross.]

The fruit of a shrub, and the shrub itself, the Ribes grossularia. The shrub is armed with spines. Of the fruit there are several varieties. The South American gooseberry belongs to the genus Melastoma, and the West Indian gooseberry to the genus Cactus. Lee.

GOOSE-CAP, n. [goos'cap.]

A silly person. Beaum. Johnson.

GOOSE-FOOT, n. [goos'foot.]

A plant, the Chenopodium.

GOOSE-GRASS', n. [goos'grass.]

A plant of the genus Galium. Also, the name of certain plants of the genera Potentilla and Asperugo.

GOOSE-NECK, n. [goos'neck.]

In a ship, a piece of iron fixed on one end of the tiller, to which the laniard of th whip-staff or wheel-rope comes, for steering the ship; also, an iron hook on the inner end of a boom. Encyc. Mar. Dict.

GOOSE-QUILL, n. [goos'quill.]

The large feather or quill of a goose; or a pen made with it.

GOOS'E-RY, n.

A place for geese.

GOOSE-TONGUE, n. [goos'tung.]

A plant of the genus Achillea.

GOOSE-WING, n. [goos'wing.]

In seamen's language, a sail set on a boom on the lee side of a ship; also, the clews or lower corners of a ship's main-sail or fore-sail, when the middle part is furled. Encyc. Mar. Dict.

GO'PHER, n.

1. The French popular name [Gaufres] of two species of Diplostoma, as is supposed.
2. An animal found in the Mississippi valley and on the Missouri, about the size of a squirrel. They burrow in the earth, throwing up hillocks twelve or eighteen inches high. They are very mischievous in cornfields and gardens. Peck's Gazetteer.

GO'PHER, n. [Heb.]

A species of wood used in the construction of the ark in Noah's day. But whether cypress pine or other wood, is a point not settled.

GOP'PISH, a.

Proud; pettish. [Not in use.] Ray.

GOR'-BEL-LIED, a.

Big-bellied.

GOR'-BEL-LY, n. [In W. gor signifies swelled, extreme, over.]

A prominent belly. [Not in use.]

GOR'-COCK, n.

The moor-cock, red-grouse, or red-game; a fowl of the gallinaceous kind. Dict. Nat. Hist.

GOR'-CROW, n.

The carrion-crow. Johnson.

GORD, n.

An instrument of gaming.

GORD'IAN, a.

Intricate. [See the next word.] Gordian knot, in antiquity, a knot in the leather or harness of Gordius, a king of Phrygia, so very intricate, that there was no finding where it began or ended. An oracle declared that he who should untie this knot should be master of Asia. Alexander, fearing that his inability to untie it should prove an ill augury, cut it asunder with his sword. Hence, in modern language, a Gordian knot is an inextricable difficulty; and to cut the Gordian knot, is to remove a difficulty by bold or unusual measures. Encyc. Lempriere.

GORE, n. [Scot. gore or gair; Ice. geir; D. geer.]

1. A wedge-shaped or triangular piece of cloth sewed into a garment to widen it in any part. Chaucer.
2. A slip or triangular piece of land. Cowel.
3. In heraldry, an abatement denoting a coward. It consists of two arch lines, meeting in an acute angle in the middle of the fees point. Encyc.

GORE, n. [Sax. gor, gore, mud; W. gor; Ir. cear, blood, and red; Gr. ιχωρ; from issuing.]

1. Blood; but generally, thick or clotted blood; blood that after effusion becomes inspissated. Milton.
2. Dirt; mud. [Unusual.] Bp. Fisher.

GORE, v.t. [W. gyru, to thrust; Gipsy, goro, a dagger. See Heb. כאר. Class Gr, No. 30, 35, 36, 53, 57, &c.]

1. To stab; to pierce; to penetrate with a pointed instrument, as a spear. Dryden.
2. To pierce with the point of a horn. If an ox gore a man or a woman. Ex. xxi.

GOR'ED, pp.

Stabbed; pierced with a pointed instrument.

GORGE, n. [gorj; Fr. gorge; It. gorga, gorgia; Sp. gorja, the throat, and gorga, a whirlpool; gorgear, to warble; G. gurgel, whence gargle; L. gurges.]

1. The throat; the gullet; the canal of the neck by which food passes to the stomach.
2. In architecture, the narrowest part of the Tuscan and Doric capitals, between the astragal, above the shaft of the column, and the annulets. Encyc.
3. In fortification, the entrance of the platform of any work. Encyc.
4. That which is gorged or swallowed, especially by a hawk or other fowl. Shak.