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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



... 25-inch block of straight-grained ash was split and split until it yielded enough pieces. These were shaved down to one fourth of an inch thick, round, smooth, and perfectly straight. Each was notched deeply at one end; three pieces of split goose feather were lashed on the notched end, and three different kinds of arrows were made. All were alike in shaft and in feathering, but differed in the head. First, the target arrows: these were merely sharpened, and the points ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... fact. There's gold to be had for the picking of it up, and by all who choose to come and work. I reckon old John Bull will scrunch up his fingers in his empty pockets when he comes to hear of it. It's a most everlasting wonderful thing, and that's a fact, that beats Joe Dunkin's goose-pie and apple sarse." ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... appropriated nearly nineteen million dollars. It provided not merely for the dredging of great rivers like the Mississippi and Ohio, but also for the Lamprey River in New Hampshire, the Waccemaw in North Carolina, together with Goose Rapids and Cheesequake Creek. Some of these, the opposition declared, might better be paved than dredged.[7] It might seem that a bill against which such obvious objections could be raised would be doomed to failure. But the argument of Ransom of North Carolina, who had ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... been appropriated by the Moslems. He derides the Freewill of man; and, like Diderot, he detects "pantaloon in a prelate, a satyr in a president, a pig in a priest, an ostrich in a minister, and a goose in a chief clerk." He holds to Fortune, the {Greek: Tuxae} of Alcman, which is, {Greek: Eunomias te kai Peithous adelpha kai Promatheias thugataer},—Chance, the sister of Order and Trust, and the daughter of Forethought. The Scandinavian ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... likely to be, a wild goose chase," declared Jack, when, at the end of an hour of forced marching they had seen no sign of the enemy. "There is no telling where the Germans are. They know the lay of the land and we don't. If they continue to retreat, ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake


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