gee-gee

English

WOTD – 4 August 2017

Etymology

A child riding a horse in Morocco

Reduplication of gee (“a command to an animal to move forward, go faster, or turn right”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈdʒiːˌdʒiː/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈdʒiˌdʒi/
• Hyphenation: gee‧gee
• Homophone: GG

Noun

gee-gee (plural gee-gees)

1. (colloquial, usually childish) A horse.
   • 1860 April 14, “The Bateman Household, and What Became of Them”, in William, Robert Chambers, editors, Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature Science and Arts, volume XIII, number 328, London: W. & R. Chambers 47 Paternoster Row and High Street Edinburgh, →OCLC, chapter XXIV (The Best of the Household), page 236:

     [W]hen great Aunt Ryder was exhausted with carrying her little nephews pick-a-back, Aunt Ellen was always willing to become a ‘gee-gee’ or riding-horse in her place, although certainly one of no very prancing and fiery temperament.

   • 1946 February 18, W. D. Walker, “Letters to the Editors”, in Life, volume 20, Chicago, Ill.: Time Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 7:

     I once heard a gee-gee neigh. / I thought he was calling for heigh. / But a man tapped my head, / And smilingly said, / "It's just that he feels a bit geigh."

   • 2015, E. Maud Graham, “End of the Camp Life”, in Michael Dawson, Catherine Gidney, Susanne M. Klausen, editors, A Canadian Girl in South Africa: A Teacher’s Experiences in the South African War, 1899–1902, Edmonton, Alta.: University of Alberta Press, →ISBN, page 88:

     Oh, you don’t catch me on a gee-gee’s [footnote: A “gee-gee” is a horse.] back again, / It’s not the sort of place that you can doze on, / For the only ’orse that I think that I can ride / Is the one that the m’ssis dries the clothes on.

   • 2015, Tim Griffiths, “Glebe and Lithgow, 1898–1910”, in Endurance, Crows Nest, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, →ISBN:

     Then one day his bookkeeper didn't show up for work, just disappeared, the financial records and journals gone with him. / 'He stole from you?' / 'He blew it all on the gee-gees and cards. I had no idea. You just can't trust people Jamie.'

Synonyms

• horsey, horsie, horsy

Related terms

• gee

Translations

colloquial, usually childish: a horse

• Finnish: heppa (fi)
• Hungarian: paci (hu), lovacska (hu)
• Latvian: zirdziņš

References

• “gee-gee”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.