Chapter Golden Valley to Good Samaritan of G by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Golden Valley to Good Samaritan

Golden Valley (The). The eastern portion of Limerick is so called, from its great natural fertility.

Golden Verses So called because they are "good as gold." They are by some attributed to Epicarmos, and by others to Empedocles, but always go under the name of Pythagoras, and seem quite in accordance with the excellent precepts of that philosopher. They are as follows: -

Ne'er suffer sleep thine eyes to close
Before thy mind hath run
O'er every act, and thought, and word,
From dawn to set of sun;
For wrong take shame, but grateful feel
If just thy course hath been;
Such effort day by day renewed
Will ward thy soul from sin.    E. C. B.

Goldy The pet name given by Dr. Johnson to Oliver Goldsmith. Garrick said of him, "He wrote like an angel and talked like poor Poll." (Born Nov. 29, 1728; died April 4, 1774.)

Golgotha signifies a skull, and corresponds to the French word chaumont. Probably it designated a bare hill or rising ground, having some fanciful resemblance to the form of a bald skull.

"Golgotha seems not entirely unconnected with the hill of Gareb, and the locality of Goath, mentioned in Jeremiah xxxi. 39, on the north-west of the city. I am inclined to fix the place where Jesus was crucified ... on the mounds which command the valley of Hinnom, above Birket-Mamila." - Renan: Life of Jesus, chap. xxv.

   Golgotha, at the University church, Cambridge, was the gallery in which the "heads of the houses" sat; so called because it was the place of skulls or heads. It has been more wittily than truly said that Golgotha was the place of empty skulls.

Goliath The Philistine giant, slain by the stripling David with a small stone hurled from a sling. (1 Sam. xvii. 23-54.). (See Giants.)

Golosh' It is said that Henry VI. wore half-boots laced at the side, and about the same time was introduced the shoe or clog called the "galage" or "gologe," meaning simply a covering; to which is attributed the origin of our word golosh. This cannot be correct, as Chaucer, who died twenty years before Henry VI. was born, uses the word. The word comes to us from the Spanish galocha (wooden shoes); German, galosche.

"Ne werë worthy to unbocle his galoche." Chaucer: Squire's Tale.

Gomarists Opponents of Arminius. So called from Francis Gomar, their leader (1563-1641).

Gombeen Man (The). A tallyman; a village usurer; a money-lender. The word is of Irish extraction.

"They suppose that the tenants can have no other supply of capital than from the gombeen man." - Egmont Hake: Free Trade in Capital, p. 375.

Gombo Pigeon French, or French as it is spoken by the coloured population of Louisiana, the French West Indies, Bourbon, and Mauritius. (Connected with jumbo.)

"Creole is almost pure French, not much more mispronounced than in some parts of France; but Gombo is a mere phonetic burlesque of French, interlarded with African words, and other words which are neither African nor French, but probably belong to the aboriginal language of the various countries to which the slaves were brought from Africa." - The Nineteenth Century. October, 1891, p. 576.

Gondola A Venetian boat.

"Venice, in her purple prime ... when the famous law was passed making all gondolas black, that the nobles should not squander fortunes upon them." - Curtis: Potiphar Papers, i. p. 31.

Gone 'Coon (A). (See Coon.)

Gone to the Devil (See under Devil .)

Gone Up Put out of the way, hanged, or otherwise got rid of. In Denver (America) unruly citizens are summarily hung on a cotton tree, and when any question is asked about them the answer is briefly given, "Gone up" - i.e. gone up the cotton tree, or suspended from one of its branches. (See New America, by W. Hepworth Dixon, i. 11.)