gaurish, staring, showy, garish. Ascham, Scholemaster, p. 54.
gavel, a quantity of corn, cut and ready to be made into a sheaf. Gavel-heap, said of wheat that is reaped but not bound, Chapman, tr. of Iliad, xxi. 328. An E. Anglian word, see EDD. (s.v. Gavel, sb.2). Norm. F. gavelle, ‘javelle’ (Moisy), Med. L. gavella (Ducange).
gaw; see [gow].
gawring-stock, a gazing-stock, a spectacle. Mirror for Mag., Yorke, st. 21. See [gaure].
gazet, gazette, a Venetian coin of small value. B. Jonson, Volpone, ii. 2 (Peregrine); Massinger, Maid of Honour iii. 1 (Jacomo). Ital. ‘gazzetta, a kind of small coyn in Venice, not worth a farthing of ours’ (Florio). See Dict.
†geances. Only in B. Jonson, Tale of a Tub, ii. 4 (Hilts). A rustic pronunciation of chances? Nares supposes that geances = jaunces. See [jaunce].
gear, geer, gere, dress, apparel. L. L. L. v. 2. 304. (ME. gere, equipment, Chaucer, C. T. A. 4016). Also, wealth, property, B. Jonson, Sad Sheph. ii. 1; talk, in depreciatory sense, ‘stuff’, Selden, Table Talk (ed. Arber, 20); an affair, business, Tr. and Cr. i. 1. 6; Romeo, ii. 4. 107; Middleton, A Chaste Maid, i. 1 (Yellow). ‘Gear’ is very common in prov. use in various senses; see EDD. (s.v.): 1, apparel; 9 and 10, goods, property; 15, trash, rubbish; 16, affair, business. See Dict.
geason, scantily produced; rare, scarce, uncommon; ‘Ixine is a rare herb and geason to be seen’, Holland, Pliny, ii. 98; Spenser, F. Q. vi. 4. 37. ME. gesen (P. Plowman, B. xiii. 271). OE. gǣsne, barren, unproductive. An Essex word (EDD.).
geats; ‘The female, which are called Geats, and the buckes Goates’, Turbervile, Hunting, ch. 47; p. 146. ME. geet, pl. she-goats (Trevisa’s Higden, i. 311). OE. gǣt, nom. pl. of gāt, a she-goat.
gee and ree; ‘He expostulates with his Oxen very understandingly, and speaks Gee and Ree better than English’, Earle, Microcosm, (ed. Arber, 49). Cp. EDD. (s.v. Gee, int.): ‘Some or other of the crook horses invariably crossed him on the road . . . owing to two words of the driver, namely “gee” and “ree”,’ Bray’s Desc., Tamar and Tavy. Two words of command to an animal driven; Gee, directs it to go forward, to move faster, Ree, to turn to the right.