gadabout (noun) = a pleasure-seeker from the Old English verb, to gad: to rove + about
e.g. All mothers desire to see their son transformed from a disreputable gadabout into a respectable family man
gadfly (noun) = an annoying person who uses criticism to incite others into action; a ‘gadfly’ literally means ‘a fly that bites and annoys cows’ from the obsolete English word, gad: goad
e.g. Recently his aunt had turned into a gadfly, forever asking him when he was going to get on and have his first child
to gainsay (someone) (verb) = to speak against (someone) from the Middle English, gain-: against + say
e.g. Some men get angry when their wives gainsay them in public situations
galère (noun) = a group of undesirable people (pronounced ‘gal-air’) from the French, galère: a ship-type galley, from the Greek, galea: a galley; the word’s negative connotations derive from the belief – now discredited by historians – that it was convicts that manned these ship-type galleys in ancient Greece
e.g. The President’s advisers were becoming increasingly concerned about the galère of suspect businessmen he was regularly lunching with
gambit (noun) = a ploy from the Italian, gambetto: the act of tripping someone up in wrestling, from gamba: leg (which, incidentally, is also the root for ‘gambolling around’)
e.g. A favourite gambit of politicians is to blame the financial crisis solely on bankers, rather than admit to their own excessive borrowing on behalf of the country
gamesmanship (noun) = the use of dubious – but not strictly illegal – tactics to win for full explanation, see box below
e.g. Some Paralympic contestants allegedly stuck needles into their testicles – which resulted in no pain as they were paralysed from the waist down – in order to produce performance-boosting adrenalin in their bodies; journalists wrote articles condemning such gamesmanship
‘gamesmanship’ derives from the words ‘games’ + ‘-manship’, along the lines of ‘sportsmanship’; but, whereas sportsmanship is the idea of playing for the enjoyment of the sport, gamesmanship means playing with the sole intention of winning the game.
The term originates from the self-explanatory title of a humorous book written in 1947 by Stephen Potter, The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship (or the Art of Winning Games without Actually Cheating). The main tactic advocated by the book is to go out of your way to break the flow of your opponent’s play, such as – during a tennis match – taking a judiciously timed loo break, immediately after a bad patch for your opponent, who’s then left to consider his recent shortcomings. This is not illegal, but is not considered gentlemanly.
Soon the phrase became employed in contexts outside of sport, where someone is intent on winning, at any cost, a business contract, for example, or an electoral mandate.
gamey (adj.) = (of language) sexually suggestive for full explanation, see box below
e.g. In their songs, rappers often use gamey language to describe women
The word ‘gamey’ derives from ‘game’ + ‘-y’.
‘game’ itself is from the Old English ‘gamen’, meaning ‘game, fun’, then later, ‘wild animals caught for sport’.
The first record of ‘gamey’, in 1863, referred to the meat of such animals ‘tasting strongly’ (and you can still use ‘gamey’ in this way today, to describe pungent meat); but with time, ‘gamey’ began to be used of language, too, to refer to sexually suggestive words.
gamut (of) (noun) = a complete range (of) for full explanation, see box below
e.g. During the play, the actress expressed the gamut of emotion, from depression to elation
The word ‘gamut’ owes its birth to an 11th-century musician and former monk named Guido d’Arezzo, who invented a mnemonic to remember the complete musical scale (the full scale being: ut, re, mi, fa, so, la and si). The mnemonic to allow easy recall of this scale was, in Latin, ‘Ut queant laxis resonare fibris Mira gestorum famuli tuorum, Solve polluti labii reatum, Sancte lohannes’ (which means in English, ‘That with full voices your servants may be able to sing the wonders of your deeds, purge the sin from their unclean lips, O holy John’).
Rodgers and Hammerstein later took these bones of this Latin mnemonic and – after replacing the initial ‘ut’ for the more sing-able ‘do’ – produced something a bit catchier, in The Sound of Music (1959),
‘Doe, a deer, a female deer
Ray, a drop of golden sun
Me, a name I call myself
Far, a long long way to run
Sew, a needle pulling thread
La, a note to follow sew
Tea, I drink with jam and bread
That will bring us back to doe…’
Now to go back to the 11th-century version, the six-note scale (ut, re, mi, fa, so, la and si) was represented on a higher and lower staff.
(A staff, when reading music, refers to the set of five horizontal lines, each representing a different musical pitch). In medieval days, the lower staff was called ‘gamma’ (the Greek word), and on it was placed the lowest note in the scale, ‘ut’. And, with time, the first two words – ‘gamma’ and ‘ut’ – became combined into ‘gam-ut’, as a quick way of referring to the whole range of music. By the 17th century ‘gamut’ was further generalised to mean an entire range of any kind (not just of music).
to run the gauntlet of (a particular ordeal)
to run the gauntlet of (a particular ordeal) (set phrase) = to endure an ordeal (of a particular type) for full explanation, see box below
e.g. Bing Crosby steeled himself, before pushing open the door to his house and running the gauntlet of photographers waiting outside
The phrase ‘to run the gauntlet’ originally referred to the military punishment – meted out to badly behaved soldiers – of forcedly running between two rows of fellow soldiers, who rained down blows with sticks onto the miscreant as he went down the middle of the two rows. During this grisly torture, another soldier – armed with a sword – would walk in front of the condemned man, to ensure he could move only very slowly down the line and thus had to bear the full brunt of the blows. If the condemned man was still alive when he reached the end of the gauntlet, then he was simply sent back down again, until death resulted.
Weirdly enough, ‘running the gauntlet’ was considered an honourable form of dispatch, because a soldier thus condemned could face death ‘like a man’, standing upright (initially at least) and dying amongst his fellow soldiers (even if it was they who were dispatching him).
The etymology of ‘gauntlet’ is from the Old English ‘gantelope’, itself a loan word – acquired during the Thirty Years War (1618–48) – from the Old Swedish, ‘gattlopp’: ‘passageway’, from ‘gatta’: ‘lane’ + ‘lopp’: ‘course’ (because the two rows of soldiers made a passageway, down which the condemned man ran). But in time, the spelling of the Old English ‘gantelope’ became – for reasons no one has ever been able to fathom – influenced by the Old French, ‘gantelet’, meaning ‘a little glove’ (see the next entry, ‘to take up the gauntlet’). And, as a result of this strange and unaccountable merger in the spelling, the English word ‘gauntlet’ now has two completely distinct meanings, which can be confusing.
to throw down / take up the gauntlet
to throw down / take up the gauntlet (set phrase) = to lay down / accept a challenge for full explanation, see box below
e.g. When she got home and found him drinking at 11am, she threw down the gauntlet and started a massive argument and
e.g. After long discussions with his wife – who was allegedly against the idea at first – Obama decided to take up the gauntlet and run for President of the United States of America
The English word ‘gauntlet’ also derives from the Old French, ‘gantelet’, meaning ‘little glove’, itself from the Old French, ‘gant’: ‘glove’.
And the phrase ‘to take up the gauntlet’ originated from the custom in the Middle Ages (1100–1453) of a knight challenging a rival knight to a duel, by ‘throwing down’ (to the ground) one of his two ‘gauntlets’: a knight’s ‘gauntlet’ being an armoured glove, with an extended cuff all the way up the forearm (for added protection). Whoever ‘took up’ this gauntlet was then deemed to have accepted the implicit challenge issued.
gelded (adj.) = weakened (pronounced with a strong ‘g’) from the Old Norse, gelda: castrate, from geldr: barren; ‘gelded’ literally refers to a horse that has ‘had the testicles removed’
e.g. Marriages where the wife earns substantially more than the hubsand have a higher-than-average divorce rate: perhaps because some men feel gelded in this situation
gelid (adj.) = very cold (pronounced ‘jel-id’) from the Latin, gelidus: cold, from gelu: cold, frost
e.g. When Osama bin Laden heard of the loss of lives in the September 11th tragedy, he reacted with gelid indifference
gemütlich (adj.) = cozy and homely (pronounced ‘guh-moot-lik’) from the German, gemütlich: cheerful
e.g. A sunbeam was streaming through the hotel window, and I lay down on the bed: all was so gemütlich that I forgot all about my imminent business meeting and fell fast asleep
gerontocrat (adj.) = a ruler who is old (pronounced ‘jer-uhn-tok-rat’) from the Greek, geron, geront-: an old man + kratos: power
e.g. After phone-hacking was alleged at the News of the World newspaper, politicians arranged an official inquiry, and interviewed Australian gerontocrat Rupert Murdoch
gestalt (noun) = a situation in which the whole is truly greater than the sum of the parts (pronounced ‘guh-shtahlt’) from the German, gestalt: form, shape
e.g. More important for a novelist than getting each scene right or making each character convincing, is to take a step back and ensure the story’s gestalt is as he intended it to be
gethsemane (noun) = a place of great suffering (pronounced ‘geth-sem-uh-nee’) for full explanation, see box below
e.g. In his retirement, President Nixon doubtless looked back at the Watergate scandal as his gethsemane
‘Gethsemane’ is a garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem; the word ‘gethsemane’ comes from the Hebrew, ‘gath-shemen’: ‘the (olive) oil press’.
In the Bible (Matthew 26), ‘Gethsemane’ is the place where Jesus went with his disciples after the Last Supper, and where Judas betrayed him, kissing Jesus and thus pointing Jesus out to his eventual captors, who were waiting in the wings.
Therefore, ‘gethesmane’ was a place of suffering for Jesus, and, when we use the word today, we continue to evoke the sense of somewhere where pain is felt.
to gladhand (a stranger) (verb) = (cynical in tone) to be overly friendly (with a stranger) so as to gain an advantage this verb started life in 1895 as the phrase ‘to give the glad hand to (someone)’, meaning ‘to extend a welcome to (someone)’; eventually the expression was contracted in 1903, into ‘to gladhand’
e.g. The bank threw a cocktail party and instructed every banker present to gladhand their clients and laugh at their jokes
glutinous (adj.) = sticky (pronounced ‘gloot-in-uhs’) from the Old French, glutineux: gluey, from the Latin, gluten: glue; ‘glutinous’ literally means ‘like glue’
e.g. On awakening, most people’s voices are glutinous with sleep
gnostic (adj.) = relating to knowledge (pronounced ‘nostik’) from the Greek, gnostos: know, related to gignoskein: to know
e.g. John Updike said that readers are driven on to read novels because of ‘gnostic suspense’: the expectation by the reader that, by reading on, he will acquire new knowledge about life and living
gobbet (noun) = a morsel (pronounced ‘gob-it’) from the Old French, gobet, diminutive of gobe: a mouthful, from gober: to swallow, of Celtic origin
e.g. The one gobbet I gleaned from a one-hour TV programme about exercising was this: just 30 seconds of exercise a day can apparently make a huge difference
golgotha / calvary (noun) = a terrible ordeal for full explanation, see box below
e.g. For an underprivileged woman who conceives in her teens, the pregnancy is often just the first part of a long golgotha / calvary
‘golgotha’ is from the Aramaic, ‘gulgulta’, meaning ‘(place of the) skull’; in the Bible (Matthew 27), ‘Golgotha’ was a hill near Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified; it was known as ‘the place of the skull’ because it had the shape of a skull. ‘Calvary’ was the later, Latin term for exactly the same biblical place (as ‘Golgotha’): it derives from the Latin word, ‘Calvaria’, which is related to the Latin, ‘calvus’, meaning ‘bald’: the concept of ‘baldness’ also conveys the smoothness of shape that the hill must have possessed (bald heads and skulls are both similarly smooth, after all).
Today, we continue to refer to an awful event or period as a ‘golgotha’ or ‘calvary’.
gonzo (adj.) = (of art, esp. journalism) having an exaggerated and gritty theme, and with the author himself featuring prominently in the work for full explanation, see box below
e.g. Certain tabloid journalists indulge in self-aggrandising gonzo reporting
‘gonzo’ derives from the Italian, ‘gonzo’: ‘rude’; the word was first used in 1970 by the editor of The Boston Globe magazine, to describe the prose of oddball journalist Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005).
The manic first-person subjectivity of ‘gonzo’ journalism was reportedly the result of sheer desperation on Hunter S. Thompson’s behalf; about to miss a looming deadline, he started frantically sending unfinished pages (full of first-hand observations) ripped out of his notebook to his magazine editor.
To understand how pro-active a journalist must be, to qualify for the label ‘gonzo’, consider – as the subject matter for a reporter – the case of a blazing inferno. Unlike a traditional journalist, who might record the scene and the aftermath in a clinical, objective fashion, a ‘gonzo’ journalist would become intensely involved, and probably get hold of a fire helmet, hose and axe and break into the building to help the firefighters; he could then pen a much more involved piece, recording the singed eyebrows of the firefighters, and what it feels like to have flames licking you for an extended period of time.
Finally, he’d give free rein to his own internal feelings about the incident.
(to cut the) Gordian knot (set phrase) = to solve a difficult problem easily by cheating, or by ‘thinking outside the box’ (‘Gordian’ is pronounced ‘gawr-dee-uhn’) for full explanation, see box below
e.g. Many US presidents attempted to curb Saddam’s behaviour, trying various attempts at diplomacy; in the end, though, Bush cut the Gordian knot and simply invaded Iraq
‘cutting the Gordian knot’ derives from the legend that Gordius – King of Gordium (in c. 2000 BC), which was the capital of Phrygia (now modern-day Turkey) – tied a knot that was very intricate, and prophesied that whoever undid it would become the ruler of Asia.
Many people tried and failed to untie the knot over the centuries until Alexander the Great turned up in 333 BC, and undid it by simply cutting through it with a sword. Within 10 years, Alexander did indeed become King of Asia.
gorgon (noun) = a terrifyingly ugly woman (pronounced ‘gawr-guhn’) for full explanation, see box below
e.g. Some women put on make-up every single day of their lives, fearing that without it they’ll look like a gorgon
‘gorgon’ comes from the Greek ‘gorgon’, itself deriving from ‘gorgos’: ‘terrible’.
There were three ‘gorgons’ of Greek legend: hideous female monsters (who happened to be sisters, named Medusa, Stheno and Euryale) whose hair was made up of writhing snakes, and whose horrifyingly ugly visages caused anyone who looked in their direction, to turn into stone. Because of their fearful countenance, the Ancient Greeks often placed stone images of these ‘gorgons’ on doors, walls and gravestones, in the hope of warding off evil.
From the 16th century, ‘gorgon’ assumed its current, metaphorical meaning, denoting ‘an absurdly ugly female’.
Götterdämmerung (noun) = (of people or of an institution in power) a complete overthrow (pronounced ‘got-er-dem-uh-roong’) for full explanation, see box below
e.g. When he stood for re-election, many liberal commentators predicted Götterdämmerung for George Bush Junior, but he did in fact win a second term
‘Götterdämmerung’ is a German word, meaning ‘the twilight of the gods’, and refers to an ancient Norse myth about the destruction of the gods (‘Ragnarøkkr’ in Norse). The reason that it is ‘Götterdämmerung’ – a German, rather than a Norse, word – that is now used to reference this myth is that it was German composer Richard Wagner (1813–83), who did the most to popularise this Norse legend about the destruction of the gods, immortalising it in his epic opera The Ring Cycle (known in German as Der Ring des Nibelungen and which is composed of four separate epic operas taking some 15 hours to play in all).
All four of Wagner’s operas are based on the original characters from Norse legend – heroes, gods and monsters – who struggle for control of a magic ring that grants the holder dominion over the entire world (not unlike the ring in Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings ). It is to the fourth and final opera in this cycle – the longest of the lot at five hours’ duration, and featuring a crowning cataclysm – that Wagner gave the name ‘Götterdämmerung’.
In this final disaster in the opera, there is a great battle between good and evil, where the gods are killed. Odin, for example, was swallowed alive by an evil wolf (hence, the title of Götterdämmerung, meaning ‘twilight of the gods’); then various natural disasters swiftly follow, for example the sun turns black, and the world is totally submerged by the sea. But the final note is one of hope, as the world resurfaces – fresh and fertile – and the surviving gods live peacefully together. The globe is then repopulated by two lucky human survivors. Today, ‘Götterdämmerung’ is still used of a similarly dramatic downfall of those in power who – like the gods in the Norse myth, and in Wagner’s opera – experience a reversal of fortune and are overthrown.
to grandstand (verb) = (derogatory in tone) to behave dramatically to impress an audience for full explanation, see box below
e.g. As they interviewed Rupert Murdoch about the phone hacking allegations, some of the politicians – knowing the TV cameras were upon them – yielded to the temptation to grandstand
‘to grandstand’ is originally a term from baseball slang. In existence since 1895, the word is a shortened version of ‘grandstand player’, the phrase for a player whose ostentatious antics appealed to spectators sat in the ‘grandstand’ (the main seating area of the stadium). Writer M.J. Kelly describes such behaviour in Play Ball in 1888:
‘It’s little things of this sort which makes the “grand stand player”. They make impossible catches, and when they get the ball they roll all over the field.’
The above attention-grabbing high jinks on the field find an echo today in the dramatic gestures of those crowd-pleasers – usually politicians or celebrities – who we continue to describe as ‘grandstanding’.
(the) gravamen (of a complaint) (noun) = the nub (of a complaint) (pronounced ‘gruh-vey-muhn’) from the Latin, gravamen: a grievance; from the Latin, gravare: to burden, from gravis: heavy
e.g. The gravamen of her complaint against her husband was his pathological infidelity
gravid with (a feeling) = full of (a feeling) (pronounced ‘grav-id’) from the Latin, gravidus: pregnant, from gravis: heavy; ‘gravid’ literally means ‘pregnant’
e.g. The scene in most divorce courts is gravid with unease
greenhorn (noun) = (informal in tone) an inexperienced person from the 15th-century English noun, greenhorn: a young horned animal, from green (in the sense of ‘fresh, new’) + horn; from 1680, greenhorn was used of people
e.g. If you’re admitted to hospital in August, you’re allegedly more likely to die than in any other month – for it is in August that greenhorn doctors are unleashed on the wards
groundling (noun) = an uncultured person for full explanation, see box below
e.g. People who prefer literary novelists – such as Jonathan Franzen – sometimes look down on those who enjoy John Grisham, describing them as groundlings
‘groundling’ was originally a word referring to the lowliest kind of theatregoer during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603).
Such theatregoers could not afford a seat, but instead had to stand in the pit, which was known as the ‘ground’ at the time (‘-ling’, denoting a patronising diminutive, was then added to the end of the word).
This terribly snobbish term – after all, each ‘groundling’ had still bothered to show up to the theatre, and had paid good money to be there – persists today, to describe an uncultured person.
(my only) grouse (is) (set phrase) (verb) = my only complaint is a ‘grouse’ – meaning ‘a complaint’ in English – derives from the Old French, groucier: ‘to grumble’; note this grouse has nothing to do with the bird (the etymology of which, incidentally, is unknown)
e.g. My only grouse about Danny Boyle’s Olympics opening ceremony was that the Queen – whose interaction in the clip with James Bond was the highlight – didn’t appear onscreen for longer
gulag (noun) = a place so awful it calls to mind one of Stalin’s forced labour camps (pronounced ‘goo-lag’) for full explanation, see box below
e.g. For today’s mollycoddled youth, a house without wifi amounts to a gulag
‘gulag’ is a Russian term, used to refer to the hundreds of forced labour camps that existed in Soviet Russia between 1923 and 1961, roughly corresponding to Stalin’s period in power (c. 1922–53). These awful camps were a major instrument of political repression, housing millions of Russians whom were deemed a threat to the state; half the inmates were imprisoned without trial (sometimes because of just one ill-timed joke). But the other reason for Stalin’s supporting the ‘gulags’ was that – since the principle behind them was ‘correction by forced labour’ – the state benefited economically from the immensely cheap work undertaken by the prisoners.
In the ‘gulag’ – the word is the Russian acronym for the Soviet agency in charge of the camps, ‘G(lavnoe) u (pravlenie ispravitel’no-trudovykh) lag (erei)’ (meaning, in English, ‘Chief Administration for Corrective Labour Camps’) – conditions were terrible, with meagre food rations, overcrowding and terrible hygiene: 1.6 million people (out of the 14 million who in total passed through the camps) died inside. And for those who got out alive, there was a lifelong ban on ever settling in big Russian cities, and on taking up certain kinds of employment (in fact, if you denied to a prospective boss that you’d been imprisoned in a camp – and this was found out – then you were imprisoned once more).
The term was introduced to the West by Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, via his book The Gulag Archipelago (1973), which likened the disparate labour camps to a ‘chain of islands’ and described how the ‘gulag’, as a system, worked people to death. Today the term ‘gulag’ is used of any state-sponsored place of suffering, and has been applied liberally to Guantanamo Bay, the US dentention camp in Cuba, as well as to North Korea’s prisons (with ‘a gulag’ being used either to refer to one such camp, or the collective noun ‘the gulag’ being employed for the entire system of interconnecting camps).
gynarchy (noun) = a society ruled by women (pronounced ‘gahy-ner-kee’) from the Greek, gyn-: woman + kratos: power
e.g. Although we are now accustomed to female Presidents and Prime Ministers, there is still no example yet of a full-blown, 100 per cent male-free gynarchy in the West