geason

English

Alternative forms

• geazon, gaison, gessen

Etymology

From Middle English geson, gesene (“rare, scarce”), from Old English gǣsne (“deprived of, wanting, destitute, barren, sterile, dead”), from Proto-West Germanic *gaisnī (“barren, poor”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰē- (“to be gaping, yawn”). Cognate with North Frisian gast (“barren”), Low German güst (“barren”), Old High German geisini, keisini (“lack”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡiːzən/, /ˈɡeɪzən/, /ˈɡɛzən/

Adjective

geason (comparative more geason, superlative most geason)

1. (rare or dialectal) Rare; uncommon; scarce.
   • 16th century, Nicholas Udall, Falcon White:

     This white falcon rare and gaison,
     This bird shineth so bright.

   • 1588, George Puttenham, “Of Proportion”, in The Arte of English Poesie; republished as George Gregory Smith, editor, Elizabethan Critical Essays‎^[1], volume 2, Oxford University Press, 1937, page 119:

     […] ye shal finde many other word to rime with him, bycause such terminations are not geazon […]

   • 1594, Thomas Lodge, The Wounds of Civil War, Act 2; republished as John Payne Collier, Robert Dodsley, Isaac Reed, editors, A Select Collection of Old Plays, volume 8, London: Septimus Prowett, 1825, page 32:

     Lectorius, friends are geason now-a-days, / And grow to fume before they taste the fire.

   • 1591, Edmund Spenser, Visions of the Worlds Vanitie:

     Such as this Age, in which all good is geason, […]

2. (UK dialectal) Difficult to procure; scant; sparing.
3. (rare or dialectal) Unusual; wonderful.

Synonyms

• (rare, uncommon, scarce): infrequent, raresome, selcouth; see also Thesaurus:rare

Anagrams

• Ganoes, Genaos, agones, genoas