Word.ws English Dictionary

Govan

Govan proper noun: a surname.

Proper noun

Govan (countable and uncountable, plural Govans)

  1. A surname.
  2. An urban area in Glasgow, Glasgow council area, Scotland, on the south bank of the River Clyde (OS grid ref NS5565).
  3. A small town in Saskatchewan, Canada.
  4. A small town in Bamberg County, South Carolina, United States.
  5. An unincorporated community in Lincoln County, Washington, United States, considered to be a ghost town.

Forms of Govan

pluralGovans

Origin of Govan

Uncertain. Traditionally said to derive from Irish gobán (“gag, muzzle”), equivalent to gob (“beak”) + -án. Clancy (1997) and Forsyth (2002) preferred a Cumbric formation, equivalent to Welsh go- (“under”) + fan, the soft mutation of ban (“peak”).

Questions about Govan

What does Govan mean?
Govan means a surname.
What part of speech is Govan?
Govan is a proper noun.

Words near Govan in the dictionary

  1. Gov Pack
  2. gov't
  3. gov'ts
  4. gov.
  5. Gov. Pack
  6. Govan
  7. Govanite
  8. Govanites
  9. Govans
  10. gove
  11. Gove City

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Govan (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: “Govan.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/govan. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.