gosh! excl.
(UK/US juv. 20C+) an extra-mild euph. for God!
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Tale of Three Bonnets (1785) 15: O gosh! O gosh! then Jouk have at her, If that be a’ ’tis nae great matter. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | ‘Royal Visit to Exeter’ Works (1801) V 102: The King was nearly overtern’d, A Gosh! a was so Badger’d. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Brother Jonathan II 94: Lord, gosh; on’y to think how nignorant [sic] some people is! | |
| ‘The Chapter Of Cocks’ Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 36: He tied up a halter, and round his head brought it, / And gosh! he was dead before he thought it? | |
| High Life in N.Y. II 249: Oh, gosh! it was enough to make a feller loose his breath. | |
| N.Y. Clipper 17 Sept. 4/6: ‘I don’t mind your havin’ a laff, but if you go to publishin’, I’ll shoot you, by gosh!’ . | |
 | ‘Artemus Ward’ ‘A Mayoralty Election’ 🌐 Oh gosh! Senter was at the battle of Tippe-ca-noo, scalped twelve Injuns and wrote a treatise in Horse-shoeing! | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 11 Nov. 2/2: We’ve seen Mrs. Langtry. The beauty? Yes. Great gosh, the beauty! | |
| Baled Hay 89: Mowin’ down little boys [...] because they say ‘gosh’. | |
| Memorie and Rime 147: Well, he’s smart. Gosh, all over. But can’t he talk! | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | ‘A Word to Texas Jack’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 65: Gosh! so-help-me! strike-me-balmy! | |
| Gem 23 Jan. 24: Gosh! If the frame an’ all were taken out, I believe we could get through! | |
| Sport (Adelaide) 31 Dec. 5/3: Oh, gosh! Alec E has a pair of white trousers. | |
| His Last Bow in Baring-Gould (1968) II 799: ‘You don’t tell me you keep your papers in that?’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Gosh, in a wide-open contraption like that!’. | |
| Wash. Herald (DC) 23 Oct. 39/6: ‘Good gosh,’ cried Jone. | |
| Wash. Herlad (DC) 9 Oct. 66/3: Omigosh! He’s dropped her!! | |
| 25 Feb. diary in Aaron (1985) 295: His organ was so big it ‘felt like a telegraph pole goin’ up inside me, an’ gosh, how it hurt’. | |
| Man Who Found Himself (1952) 94: ‘Gosh!’ he murmured. | |
| (con. 1830s–60s) All That Swagger 194: Gosh, old Sandy was crying like an old woman. | |
| ‘Tried in the Furnace’ in Young Men in Spats 61: ‘I believed you when you handed me all that drip about yielding your claim and what not. My gosh!’. | |
| L.A. Times 13 Sept. 107/4: ‘Why, good gosh, any one of us would be glad to do all we could’. | |
| Mating Season 9: This stuff about coolnesses drew a startled ‘Gosh!’ from me. | |
| Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit 71: ‘Gosh!’ he says to himself. | |
| Beano 1 Aug. n.p.: G-Gosh! It’s amazing! | |
| Blue Movie (1974) 234: ‘Gosh,’ said Debbie. ‘Heavy,’ said Dave. | |
| Rhyme Stew (1990) 71: Oh gosh, all right then, off we go! | |
| Powder 274: ‘Gosh!’ said Wheezer, watching her go. | |
| Observer Rev. 9 Jan. 1: Oh gosh, I’m sorry. | |
| Seven Demons 139: ‘Had not noticed that at all gosh is she really? [i.e. attractive]. |
In exclamations
a mild euph. for by God!
| Author in Works (1799) I 153: By gosh! and so it is. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Spanish Rivals I ii: peter: I recon I mun never see canny Cumberland again, the heart of all England, by Gosh. bast.: You like better, it seems, to be in the heart of all Spain, by Gosh. | |
| letter Correspondence (1888) I 210: I promise, by Gosh (which is the most elegant and classical oath imaginable), that great care shall be taken of them. | |
| Brother Jonathan I 105: Both o’ ’em, by gosh! plump – into a snarl o’ Mohawks. | |
| Turpin’s Ride to York II vi: By gosh! but a stupid yokel is sometimes a man of sense. | |
| Louisiana ‘Swamp Doctor’ (1850) 51: By gosh! but it war a quickener. | |
| The Down-Trodden 34/2: By gosh, if it taint tew bad. | |
| Our Boys 41: Now, by gosh, I will go and tell the captain! | |
| Roughing It 27: Danged if I didn’t begin to think you fellers was deef and dumb. I did, b’gosh. | |
| letter 25 Dec. in Byrkit Letters from the Southwest (1989) 203: ‘By gosh!’ said heI know it’s doggoned tough now, but it’ll be a darned lot of fun to remember it. | |
| My Secret Life (1966) V 897: By gosh, I’ll marry her in three weeks. | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 29 Mar. 3/1: Capt. James Blake [...] claims title and can confirm it, b'gosh, to being a descendant of an admiral of that name who made a tea pot of Boston Harbor. | |
| ‘The Bush Undertaker’ in Roderick (1972) 53: Brummy! by gosh! — busted up at last! | |
| S.F. Call 17 Nov. 8/2: But war, by gosh, is pleasure. Them football games is biz. | |
| Philosophy 4 75: Her father was a fightin’ preacher, and she’s – well, begosh! she’s a chip of the old pulpit. | |
| Eve. World (NY) 12 Mar. 12/4: B’Gosh, I’ve tipped th’ waiter, dad fetch his skinnin’ soul. | |
| Eve. Star (Wash., DC) 6 June 39/2: ‘And By-y Gosh!’, he said, ‘we’ve got a minute anyways’. | |
| Inimitable Jeeves 169: But, by gosh, if I was a sick man I’d hate to have a looney like young Bingo coming and gibbering at my bedside. | |
| Boys’ Realm 16 Jan. 259: You, Wolf! By gosh, you get back! | |
| letter 20 Mar. in Mitgang (1968) 441: The same dictum of taste and feeling bigosh out it goes. | |
| (con. c.1900) King Blood (1989) 22: Ray’s pounding of his mother’s meat [...] was all right, by gosh. | |
| Semi-Tough 198: By gosh, we’ll convert Strooby yet. | |
| Rhyme Stew (1990) 53: And Ali Baba thought, By gosh, / I’m awfully glad that I’m not posh. | |
| Guardian Guide 4–10 Dec. 15: People tell me it’s a fine film, and by gosh, that’s great. |
a general excl.
| M.S. Bradford Special 50: Yes! Great Gosh! you’ve got his voice now! | |
| Topeka State Jrnl (KS) 16 Aug. 9/3: [cartoon caption] Great Gosh, Tom! | |
| Shearer’s Colt 92: A policeman! Good gosh! Ain’t that too awful! | |
| Blood and Thirsty (1952) 218: Good gosh, I wish you would! | |
| Glover 170: Good Gosh, we’ll wind up millionaires yet. |
a euph. for I’ll be damned!
| Lin McLean 129: ‘I’ll be goshed,’ he thought, ‘if I’d caught on to half that when I was streakin’ around in short pants!’. |
a general excl., euph. for my God!
| This Side of Paradise in Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald III (1960) 54: My gosh, Kerry, what in hell is it all about? | |
| Right Ho, Jeeves 43: ‘They are my Aunt Dahlia.’ ‘My gosh!’. | |
| Somebody in Boots 250: Migosh, Nub, you don’t give me credit fo’ knowin’ nothin’. | |
| Mating Season 69: My gosh, Bertie, what a lad! | |
| Look Back in Anger Act III: My gosh, look at ’em! | |
| Jeeves in the Offing 6: What! Bobbie Wickham? Oh, my gosh! | |
| Barcoo Salute 127: Then I did worry. My gosh! | |
| Guardian Guide 5–12 June 30: How did ‘oh my gosh’ get to be the trendiest single thing one could say to one’s peers of an evening? | |
| Observer Screen 16 Jan. 3: Oh my gosh, I really have everything I could possibly want or need in this life. | |
| NY Times 18 Jan. 🌐 I use one word a lot [...] and it’s ‘oh my goshahhhh!’ I don’t like using the word God in vain so i sya gosh instead. |