Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions

(Amelia) #1
celerator of a car. Give it a good goose
and see what happens. One more goose,
but don’t hold it down so long.

goose egg 1. n. a score of zero. We got
a goose egg in the second inning. It was
double goose eggs for the final score. 2. n.
a bump on the head. Yo u’ v e g o t q u i t e
a goose egg there. I walked into a door
and got a big goose egg on my forehead. 3.
n. a failure; a zero. (Similar to sense 1.)
The outcome was a real goose egg. A to-
tal mess. The result of three weeks’ plan-
ning is one big goose egg.


go over bigin. to be appreciated as a suc-
cess. I’m sure this will go over big with
the folks at home. Well, it didn’t go over
very big with the boss.


go overboardin. to do far more than is
necessary. He has a tendency to go over-
board at these parties. Now don’t go
overboard for us. We’re just folks.


go over like a lead balloonin. [for some-
thing meant to be good] to fail to be
good. (See also go over big.) The joke
went over like a lead balloon. I’m afraid
your plan went over like a lead balloon.


go over the hillin. to escape from a prison
or from the military service. (See also
over the hill; go over the wall.) Jim
went over the hill, and they caught him. 
Jed and Tom planned to go over the hill last
night. What happened?


go over the wallin. to escape from a
prison. Lefty tried to go over the wall,
but the warden got wind of it. Nobody
goes over the wall in this joint.


goozlum[“guzl@m] n. any gummy, sticky
substance: syrup, gravy, soup, etc. Do
you want some of this wonderful goozlum
on your ice cream? Just keep putting that
goozlum on my spuds.


gopher and gofer[“gof#] 1. n. someone
who goes for things and brings them
back. (From go for.) You got a gopher
who can go get some coffee? Send the
gofer out for cigarettes. 2. n. a dupe; a
pawn; an underling. The guy’s just a go-
pher. He has no say in anything. I’ll send
a gopher over to pick up the papers.


gopher balln. a baseball pitch that is hit as
a home run. (When it is hit, the batter
will go forhome.) Wilbur hit another
long gopher ball straight across center field.
The center fielder did a dive over the
fence trying to get the gopher ball.
go-pillsn. amphetamines. (Drugs.) She
took go-pills to start the day. After a
while, these go-pills just demand to be
taken.
go placesin. to become very successful. 
I knew that Sally would go places. I
really want to go places in life.
go postalin. to become wild; to go berserk.
He made me so mad I thought I would
go postal.
go public 1. in. to sell to the public shares
of a privately owned company. (Securi-
ties markets.) The company decided not
to go public because the economy was so
bad at the time. We’ll go public at a later
time. 2. in. to reveal something to the
public. (Especially with with,as in the ex-
amples.) It’s too early to go public with
the story. Just let me know when we can
go public with this.
gorilla biscuits and gorilla pillsn. am-
phetamines. (Drugs.) Tracy is big on
those gorilla pills. Stay away from go-
rilla biscuits.
gorilla juicen. steroids. (Bodybuilding.
Steroids build muscle tissue rapidly.) 
Andy really wanted to get hold of some go-
rilla juice, but his parents said no. Do
all those muscle-bound creatures take go-
rilla juice?
gorilla pillsGo to gorilla biscuits.
go Rinso[...”rInso] in. to fail; to collapse in
price. (A play on to go down the drain.
Rinso is a laundry soap that goes down
the drain after it is used. Used in the con-
text of the securities markets or other fi-
nancial setting.) All my drug stocks
went Rinso when the president attacked
the drug industry. I knew my bank ac-
count would go Rinso after last month’s
bills came in.
gork[gork] 1. n. a fool; a dupe. Martin
acts like such a gork sometimes. The

gork
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