GORGER, a swell, a well dressed, or gorgeous man—probably derived from that word.
GOSPEL GRINDER, a city missionary, or tract distributor.
GOSS, a hat—from the gossamer silk with which modern hats are made.
GONNOF, or GUN, a fool, a bungler, an amateur pickpocket. A correspondent thinks this may be a corruption of gone off, on the analogy of GO-ALONG; but the term is really as old as Chaucer’s time. During Kett’s rebellion in Norfolk, in the reign of Edward VI., a song was sung by the insurgents in which the term occurs—
“The country GNOFFES, Hob, Dick, and Hick,
With clubbes and clouted shoon,
Shall fill up Dussyn dale
With slaughtered bodies soone.”
GOUROCK HAM, salt herrings. Gourock, on the Clyde, about twenty-five miles from Glasgow, was formerly a great fishing village.—Scotch.
GOVERNMENT SIGNPOST, the gallows.