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Goose   /gus/   Listen
noun
Goose  n.  (pl. geese)  (Zool.)
1.
Any large web-footen bird of the subfamily Anserinae, and belonging to Anser, Branta, Chen, and several allied genera. See Anseres. Note: The common domestic goose is believed to have been derived from the European graylag goose (Anser anser). The bean goose (A. segetum), the American wild or Canada goose (Branta Canadensis), and the bernicle goose (Branta leucopsis) are well known species. The American white or snow geese and the blue goose belong to the genus Chen. See Bernicle, Emperor goose, under Emperor, Snow goose, Wild goose, Brant.
2.
Any large bird of other related families, resembling the common goose. Note: The Egyptian or fox goose (Alopochen Aegyptiaca) and the African spur-winged geese (Plectropterus) belong to the family Plectropteridae. The Australian semipalmated goose (Anseranas semipalmata) and Cape Barren goose (Cereopsis Novae-Hollandiae) are very different from northern geese, and each is made the type of a distinct family. Both are domesticated in Australia.
3.
A tailor's smoothing iron, so called from its handle, which resembles the neck of a goose.
4.
A silly creature; a simpleton.
5.
A game played with counters on a board divided into compartments, in some of which a goose was depicted. "The pictures placed for ornament and use, The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose."
A wild goose chase, an attempt to accomplish something impossible or unlikely of attainment.
Fen goose. See under Fen.
Goose barnacle (Zool.), any pedunculated barnacle of the genus Anatifa or Lepas; called also duck barnacle. See Barnacle, and Cirripedia.
Goose cap, a silly person. (Obs.)
Goose corn (Bot.), a coarse kind of rush (Juncus squarrosus).
Goose feast, Michaelmas. (Colloq. Eng.)
Goose grass. (Bot.)
(a)
A plant of the genus Galium (G. Aparine), a favorite food of geese; called also catchweed and cleavers.
(b)
A species of knotgrass (Polygonum aviculare).
(c)
The annual spear grass (Poa annua).
Goose neck, anything, as a rod of iron or a pipe, curved like the neck of a goose; specially (Naut.), an iron hook connecting a spar with a mast.
Goose quill, a large feather or quill of a goose; also, a pen made from it.
Goose skin. See Goose flesh, above.
Goose tongue (Bot.), a composite plant (Achillea ptarmica), growing wild in the British islands.
Sea goose. (Zool.) See Phalarope.
Solan goose. (Zool.) See Gannet.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Goose" Quotes from Famous Books



... a goose," he rejoined—for it was a question to which he had never in his life returned a ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... "is Columbus River, alias Goose Run. If it was widened, and deepened, and straightened, and made, long enough, it would be one of the finest rivers in the ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... seconding it; you Nasidienus, return with an altered countenance, as if to repair your ill-fortune by art. Then followed the slaves, bearing on a large charger the several limbs of a crane besprinkled with much salt, not without flour, and the liver of a white goose fed with fattening figs, and the wings of hares torn off, as a much daintier dish than if one eats them with the loins. Then we saw blackbirds also set before us with scorched breasts, and ring-doves without the rumps: delicious morsels! did not the master give us the history of their causes and ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... spent.' 'And when a soldier was his theme, my name—my name [namme de plume] was nor far off.' King James forgot how many weapons this man carried. He took one sword from him, he did not know that that pen, that harmless goose-quill, carried in its sheath another. He did not know what strategical operations the scholar, who was 'an old soldier' and a politician also, was capable of conducting under such conditions. Those were narrow quarters ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... whom (I speak from experience) have few ideas beyond the fixing of a button or lappel, or polishing a belt, and who place the whole Ars recondita of military discipline in pipe-clay, heel-ball and the goose step. Fortunately for this army, the Duke of Wellington has too much good sense to be a martinet and the good old times are gone by, thank God, when a soldier used to be sentenced to two or three hundred lashes for having a dirty belt or being without a ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye


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