goat

goat
\ \ [OE] Old English had no all-purpose word for ‘goat’; the male goat was a bucca (‘buck’) and the female goat was a gāt. In early Middle English, goat began to encroach on the semantic territory of buck, and by the 14th century it had come to be the dominant form for both sexes, as is shown by the emergence around that time of the distinguishing terms she-goat and he-goat (nanny-goat and billy-goat are much later – 18th-century and 19th-century respectively). Goat itself comes via prehistoric Germanic *gaitaz (source of German geiss, Dutch geit, Swedish get, and Danish ged) from Indo- European *ghaidos. This may be related to Lithuanian zaidziuplay’, and if so, the goat could be etymologically the ‘animal that jumps about’ (semantic development in the opposite direction has given English caper from Latin capergoat’).

Word origins - 2ed. . 2005.

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  • Goat — (g[=o]t), n. [OE goot, got, gat, AS. g[=a]t; akin to D. geit, OHG. geiz, G. geiss, Icel. geit, Sw. get, Dan. ged, Goth. gaits, L. haedus a young goat, kid.] (Zo[ o]l.) A hollow horned ruminant of the genus {Capra}, of several species and… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • goat — O.E. gat she goat, from P.Gmc. *gaitaz (Cf. O.S. get, O.N. geit, Dan. gjed, M.Du. gheet, Du. geit, O.H.G. geiz, Ger. Geiß, Goth. gaits goat ), from PIE *ghaidos young goat, also p …   Etymology dictionary

  • goat — goat; goat·herd; goat·ish; goat·ling; goat·skin; goat·stone; goat·weed; scape·goat·er; scape·goat·ism; goat·ish·ness; …   English syllables

  • goat — [ gout ] noun count * 1. ) an animal similar to a sheep but with longer legs and a thinner coat. The male goat is called a billy goat and the female is called a nanny goat. A young goat is called a kid. 2. ) INFORMAL an insulting word for an old… …   Usage of the words and phrases in modern English

  • goat — [gōt] n. [ME gote < OE gat, akin to Du geit, Ger geiss < IE base * ghaido , he goat > L haedus, kid goat ] 1. pl. goats or goat a) any of a genus (Capra) of wild or domesticated bovid ruminants with hollow horns ☆ b) ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT …   English World dictionary

  • goat — [gəut US gout] n [: Old English; Origin: gat] 1.) an animal that has horns on top of its head and long hair under its chin, and can climb steep hills and rocks. Goats live wild in the mountains or are kept as farm animals. 2.) get sb s goat… …   Dictionary of contemporary English

  • goat — ► NOUN 1) a hardy domesticated mammal that has backward curving horns and (in the male) a beard. 2) a wild mammal related to this, such as the ibex. 3) informal a lecherous man. 4) Brit. informal a stupid person. ● get someone s goat Cf. ↑get… …   English terms dictionary

  • goat|ee — «goh TEE», noun. a pointed, trimmed beard on a man s chin. It looks like the beard of a he goat. ╂[American English < goat] …   Useful english dictionary

  • GOAT — Abreviatura de prueba de Galveston de orientación y amnesia. Diccionario Mosby Medicina, Enfermería y Ciencias de la Salud, Ediciones Hancourt, S.A. 1999 …   Diccionario médico

  • goat — [n1] hollow horned mammal billy, buck, kid; concepts 394,400 …   New thesaurus

  • Goat — Billy goat redirects here. For the Lance Corporal in the Royal Welsh, see William Windsor (goat). For the urban legend, see Curse of the Billy Goat. This article is about the domesticated species. For other species, see Capra (genus). For other… …   Wikipedia

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