1888. Cassell’s Saturday Journal, 22 Dec., p. 301. We was pretty nigh goosed.
3. (cobblers’).—To mend boots by putting on a new front half-way up, and a new bottom; elsewhere called footing boots. Cf., Fox.
4. (venery).—To go wenching; to womanize (q.v.).
5. (venery).—To possess a woman.
Goose Without Gravy, subs. phr. (nautical).—A severe but bloodless blow. See Wipe.
To be sound on the goose. verb. phr. (American).—Before the civil war, to be sound on the pro-slavery question: now, to be generally staunch on party matters; to be politically orthodox.
1857. Providence Journal, 18 June. To seek for political flaws is no use, His opponents will find he is sound on the goose.
1857. Gladstone, Kansas: or Squatter Life, p. 43. One of the boys, I reckon? All right on the goose, eh? No highfaluten airs here, you know.
1862. Lowell, Biglow Papers, II. Northern religion works wal North, but it’s ez suft ez spruce, compar’d to our’n for keepin’ sound, sez she, upon the goose.
1875. American English in Chamb. Journal, 25 Sept., p. 610. A man who can be depended upon by his party is said to be sound on the goose.