"G" Word Origins

gorgeous

Old French

From Middle French gorgias ("elegant, fashionable"), tied to Old French gorge ("throat/bosom") — the idea being someone who proudly puffs out their chest or throat, dressed to impress.

gorger

Origin

Compare gadje.

gorgerin

Origin

Borrowed from French gorgerin.

gorget

Origin

From Middle English gorget, from Old French gorgete, from gorge (“throat”).

gorgeted

Origin

From gorget + -ed.

gorgon

Ancient Greek

From Ancient Greek Gorgṓ, related to gorgós ("terrible, fierce") — likely echoing a harsh, growling sound, much like an onomatopoeia for a monster's snarl.

gorgonzola

Origin

Named after Gorgonzola, the town near Milan, Italy, where the cheese was first made.

gorilla

Ancient Greek

Traces back through Ancient Greek Górillai, a name reportedly used by the Carthaginian explorer Hanno for a tribe of hairy people he encountered on the West African coast — the word was later borrowed for the ape.

goring

Old English

From Old English Garingas (“people of Gara”), a short form of the various compound names with the first element gār (“spear, arrow, dart”).

gorky

Russian

From Russian Го́рький (Górʹkij).

Gorman

Irish

An anglicized form of Irish Ó Gormáin ("descendant of Gormán").

gormandizer

Origin

From gormandize + -er.

Gormley

Irish

An anglicized form of Irish Ó Gormghail.

gorram

Origin

A corruption of goddamn, attested since at least 1963. Popularized by the 2002 television series Firefly.

Gorski

Polish

Borrowed from Polish Górski.

gory

Origin

From "gore" (blood) plus the adjective-forming suffix "-y."

Goryeo

Korean

From the Korean name Goryeo, which was later Romanized by Western traders into "Korea."

gosh

Origin · 1750

An altered, softened form of "God," first recorded in the phrase "by gosh" in the 1750s.

goshwow

Origin

From gosh + wow. Derived from a caption ("Gosh! Wow! Boyohboy! The mosta and the besta!") used in the July 10, 1939 issue of Time magazine, reprinted from a letter in the August 1939 issue of science fiction pulp magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories, in an article about the first World Science Fiction Convention, aka Nycon I, held in New York in July 1939.

gosling

Old Norse

From Old Norse gæsling, combining "goose" with the diminutive ending "-ling," the same pattern seen in words like "duckling."

gospel

Old English

From Old English godspell, literally "good news" (god + spell, "story"), coined to translate the Greek euangélion — the source of the English word "evangel."

goss

Origin

A clipped, informal shortening of "gossip."

gossamer

Middle English

From Middle English gossomer, likely from "goose" + "summer" — originally describing a spell of mild autumn weather when geese were traditionally eaten, later transferred to the delicate cobwebs that appear at that time of year.

gossip

Old English

From Old English godsibb, originally meaning "godparent" (literally "God-relative"). Over time, close family friends and godparents who chatted about family matters gave the word its modern sense of idle talk about others.

gossipmonger

Origin

From gossip + monger.

gossipred

Origin

From Middle English gossiprede, gossybrede, godsibrede, from Old English godsibbrǣden (“sponsorial obligations”), equivalent to gossip + -red.

got

Old Norse

The past form of "get", itself from Old Norse geta, meaning "to obtain" or "to guess".

gotcha

Origin · 1900

A casual spelling of "got you", first written down this way in the 20th century.

goth

Origin · 1970

Short for "gothic", a term first applied to a dark, moody style of rock music in the late 1970s, itself borrowed from the term for the medieval Gothic period and its brooding fiction.

Gothenburg

Swedish

From Swedish Göteborg, meaning roughly "fort on the Göta river".

Gothic

Late Latin

From Late Latin gothicus ("of the Goths"), originally used as an insult meaning "barbaric" before being applied to medieval architecture and, centuries later, to a horror-tinged style of fiction and music.

gothlike

Origin

From Goth + -like.

GOTO

Origin

A contraction of the phrase "go to", adopted as a keyword in early programming languages.

gots

Origin

Formed by treating the colloquial phrase "got" (as in "have got") as if it were a present-tense verb needing its own conjugation.

Gott

German

Possibly from German Gott ("God").

gotta

Origin

Contraction of got + to.

gotten

Origin

Formed from "got" plus the old past-participle ending "-en", the same pattern seen in "forgotten".

Gottfried

German

From German Gott ("god") and Friede ("peace").

Gotti

Italian

Borrowed from Italian Gotti.

Gottlieb

German

Borrowed from German Gottlieb.

Gotto

Italian

Borrowed from Italian Gotto.

Gouda

Dutch

Named after the Dutch city of Gouda, where the cheese has traditionally been traded.

gouge

Old French

From Old French gouge, a word for a chisel with a curved blade, traced back to a Gaulish word for "beak" or "point".

goulash

Origin

From Hungarian gulyás, short for gulyáshús, literally "herdsman's meat".

Gould

Origin

A variant of the surname Gold.

gound

Origin

From Middle English gounde, gownde, from Old English gund (“matter, pus, poison”), from Proto-West Germanic *gund, from Proto-Germanic *gundaz (“sore, boil”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰendʰ- (“ulcer, sore, abscess, boil”). Cognate with Old High German gunt (“purulent matter”), dialectal Norwegian gund (“the scab of an ulcer”).

gourd

Latin

From Latin cucurbita, via Old French, and a doublet of the word "cucurbit".

gourmand

Origin

From Middle English gourmaunt, gormond, gromonde, from Old French gormant (“a glutton”, noun), from gormant (“gluttonous”, adjective), of uncertain origin.