Word.ws English Dictionary

land o' Goshen

land o' Goshen interjection: used by Christians for swearing without being overtly vulgar or blasphemous.

Interjection

  1. (US, dated) Used by Christians for swearing without being overtly vulgar or blasphemous.
    • "Land o' Goshen! sence I've come t' the happy land, as I call it, I ain't hed no sech tea as I used t'."1884, Lydia Wood Baldwin, A Yankee School-teacher in Virginia, New York: Funk and Wagnalls, page 210
    • Stomp on the moon and spit in the ocean / Razzamatazz and I love you / Holy smokes and Land o' Goshen / You can do anything that you want to do.1971, “Suicide Song”, in Loudon Wainwright III (lyrics), Album II, performed by Loudon Wainwright III

Origin of land o' Goshen

From the place first mentioned in Genesis 45:10 as the land set aside for the Israelites when they settled in Egypt (ultimately from Hebrew אֶרֶץ־גֹּשֶׁן (“ʾEreṣ Gōšen”)). Perhaps chosen as a minced oath to replace gosh, itself a replacement for God.

Questions about land o' Goshen

What does land o' Goshen mean?
Land o' Goshen means used by Christians for swearing without being overtly vulgar or blasphemous.
What part of speech is land o' Goshen?
Land o' Goshen is an interjection.

Words near land o' Goshen in the dictionary

  1. land mile
  2. land miles
  3. land mine
  4. land mines
  5. Land o' Cakes
  6. land o' Goshen
  7. Land o' the Leal
  8. land of a thousand hills
  9. Land of Cakes
  10. Land of Enchantment
  11. Land of Fire

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: land o' Goshen (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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