Word.ws English Dictionary

gote

UK/ɡəʊt/US/ɡoʊt/

gote noun: a drain; sluice; ditch or gutter.

Noun

gote (plural gotes)

  1. A drain; sluice; ditch or gutter.
    • ... "Sculcoates gote to the mid- stream of the river Humber" is mentioned. The following extract from Lord John Russell's Memoirs of Thomas Moore (vol. v. p. 28.) may throw light on the site of this gote, one of the[…]1854, Notes and Queries, page 402
    • ... Sculcoates gote to the Humber, for the purpose of draining the marshes within his lordship. In the south aisle of the church of Sutton, were formerly to be seen the arms of the family in glass, and at a later period there was in the[…]1857, James Joseph Sheahan, T. Whellan, History and Topography of the City of York: The Ainsty Wapentake; and the East Riding of Yorkshire; Embracing a General Review of the Early History of Great...
  2. (UK, dialectal) A drainage pipe.
  3. (Northern England, Scotland, UK, dialectal) A deep miry place.

Forms of gote

pluralgotes
alternative formgout
alternative formgoat
alternative formgott

Origin of gote

From Middle English gote (“a drain”), from Old English *gota, *gote (“drain, gutter”), from Proto-West Germanic *gotā, from Proto-Germanic *gutǭ (“gutter”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰewd- (“to pour”). Cognate with Dutch goot (“a gutter, drain, gully”), German Gosse (“a gutter”). Related to Old English gutt (“gut, entrails”), Old English ġēotan (“to pour, pour forth, shed, gush, flow, flood, overwhelm, found, cast”). More at gut, yote.

Questions about gote

What does gote mean?
Gote means a drain; sluice; ditch or gutter.
What part of speech is gote?
Gote is a noun.
How do you pronounce gote?
Gote is pronounced /ɡəʊt/ (UK).
What is the plural of gote?
The plural of gote is gotes.

Words near gote in the dictionary

  1. gotchies
  2. gotchu
  3. gotchya
  4. Gotco
  5. gotdamn
  6. gote
  7. Goteborg
  8. gotes
  9. goth
  10. goth out
  11. goth up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gote (page history and authors). 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.

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