goo

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See also: Goo, góo, go'o, goo', -góó, and =göö-

English[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /ɡuː/
  • Audio (US)
    		(file)
  • Rhymes: -uː

Etymology 1[edit]

American English, known since 1903, possibly from burgoo (“thick porridge”) (1787); alternately, perhaps an alteration of glue.

Noun[edit]

goo (uncountable)

  1. (uncountable, informal) Any semi-solid or liquid substance; especially one that is sticky, gummy or slippery, unpleasant, and of vague or unknown composition, such as slime or semen.
    Synonyms: gloop, goop, gunge, gunk; see also Thesaurus:goo
    I stepped in some goo and had a terrible time getting the sticky stuff off my shoes.
  2. Excessive, showy sentimentality.
    Synonyms: mawkishness, saccharinity, sugariness
    • 1996, David Foster Wallace, “14 November Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment”, in Infinite Jest: A Novel, New York, N.Y.; Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 694-95:
      Hal, who’s empty but not dumb, theorizes privately that what passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human (at least as he conceptualizes it) is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naive and goo-prone and generally pathetic, is to be in some basic interior way forever infantile, some sort of not-quite-right-looking infant dragging itself anaclitically around the map, with big wet eyes and froggy-soft skin, huge skull, gooey drool.
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]

Verb[edit]

goo (third-person singular simple present goos, present participle gooing, simple past and past participle gooed)

  1. (transitive) To apply goo to something.
    They gooed their hair with some fragrant styling product.

Etymology 2[edit]

(onomatopoeia)

Noun[edit]

goo (plural goos)

  1. An example of baby talk.
    The infant's goos and gahs were endearing.

Verb[edit]

goo (third-person singular simple present goos, present participle gooing, simple past and past participle gooed)

  1. (intransitive) To produce baby talk.
    The baby gooed while daddy made sappy faces at it.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  • “goo” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2021.
  • Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967

Anagrams[edit]

Dutch[edit]

Noun[edit]

goo f (plural gooën)

  1. Alternative form of gouw

Anagrams[edit]

Esperanto[edit]

Noun[edit]

goo (accusative singular goon, plural gooj, accusative plural goojn)

  1. The board game go

Manx[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From Old Irish guth, from Proto-Celtic *gutus, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰuHtus, from *ǵʰewH- (“to call on, invoke”).

Noun[edit]

goo m (genitive singular goo, plural googhyn)

  1. voice
  2. word, reputation

Mutation[edit]

Manx mutation
Radical Lenition Eclipsis
goo ghoo ngoo
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every
possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Etymology 2[edit]

Noun[edit]

goo

  1. Eclipsed form of coo.

Middle English[edit]

Verb[edit]

goo

  1. Alternative form of gon (“to go”)

References[edit]

p. 1, Arthur; A Short Sketch of his Life and History in English Verse of the First Half of the Fifteenth Century, Frederick Furnivall ed. EETS. Trübner & Co.: London. 1864.

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