Word.ws English Dictionary

gosling

/ˈɡɒzlɪŋ//ˈɡɑzlɪŋ/

gosling noun: a young goose.

gosling: a young goose
Image: Alan D. Wilson, www.naturespicsonline.com, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

gosling (plural goslings)

  1. A young goose.
    • Marta's gander was a magnificent snow-white bird: the object of terror to foxes, children and dogs. She had reared him as a gosling; and whenever he approached, he would let fly a low contented burble and sidle his neck around her thighs.1988, Bruce Chatwin, Utz, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN; republished London: Vintage Books, 2005, →ISBN, page 50
    Synonyms:
    gooseling
  2. An inexperienced and immature, or foolish and naive, young person.
    • Two stout woodmen with difficulty cut down this tree, the chips of which flew far and wide about the hall; but at my command my two green goslings carried away the fragments without any difficulty.1862 April 19, “Mediums Under Other Names”, in All the Year Round, volume 7, page 132
  3. (dated) A catkin on willows, nut trees, and pines.
    • These Aments (we must no longer call them catkins) are composed both of male and female flowers; what Henry calls goslings in spring are the Aments of the willow tree ; his green goslings are female Aments , and , when mature , have the appearance of little tufts of wool, which appearance is caused...1797, Botanical Dialogues, Between Hortensia and Her Four Children, page 8
    • When the oak puts on his goslings grey 'Tis time to sow barley night or day.1893, “Tree Proverbs”, in The Journal of Education, volume 37, page 170

Proper noun capitalized: Gosling

  1. A surname.

gosling meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Urdu and Malayalam

gosling in Tamil

பெண் வாத்து

gosling in Marathi

गॉसलिंग

gosling in Urdu

گوسلنگ

gosling in Malayalam

ഗോസ്ലിംഗ്
More languagesFewer languages
gosling in Kannada
ಗೋಸ್ಲಿಂಗ್
gosling in Gujarati
ગોસલિંગ
gosling in Nepali
गोस्लिङ, गोस्लिंङ
gosling in Arabic
فَرْغَل farḡal, دُرَّج durraj

Examples of gosling in a sentence

  • It produces the “goslings” which children are fond of gathering at Easter .1901, Edward North Buxton, Epping Forest, page 116:
  • Locally, the flowers are known as 'goslings'.2018, John Lewis-Stempel, The Wood: The Life & Times of Cockshutt Wood:

Synonyms of gosling

Forms of gosling

Noun
pluralgoslings
alternative regional (obsolete)goslin
Proper noun
pluralGoslings

Plural of gosling: goslings

Origin of gosling

From Late Middle English goslyng (“gosling”), alteration (due to Middle English goos (“goose”)) of earlier gesling (“gosling”), of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse gæsling, géslingr (“gosling”), from gás (“goose”) + -lingr (“-ling”), equivalent to goose + -ling. Cognate with Danish gæsling (“gosling”), Swedish gässling (“gosling”). Compare also Low German gossel, gössel (“gosling”), German Gänslein (“gosling”).

* As an English surname, spelling variant of Joslin. * Also as an English surname, from Middle English gosling (“young goose”), partly borrowed from Old Norse gæslingr; equivalent to modern goose + -ling. * As a German surname, from a personal name based on gut (“good”).

Words formed from gosling

Questions about gosling

What does gosling mean?
Gosling means a young goose.
What is gosling in Tamil?
Gosling in Tamil is பெண் வாத்து. See Gosling meaning in Tamil.
How do you use gosling in a sentence?
It produces the “goslings” which children are fond of gathering at Easter .
What part of speech is gosling?
Gosling can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce gosling?
Gosling is pronounced /ˈɡɒzlɪŋ/ (UK).
What is the plural of gosling?
The plural of gosling is goslings.

Words near gosling in the dictionary

  1. Goslee
  2. Goslees
  3. goslet
  4. goslets
  5. goslin
  6. gosling
  7. gosling blast
  8. goslings
  9. goslins
  10. Gosnell
  11. Gosnells

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gosling (page history and authors); Gosling (page history and authors); gosling (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); gosling (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gosling (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gosling (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gosling (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gosling (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gosling (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-gosling.wav, en-us-gosling.ogg.

Cite this entry: “gosling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gosling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.