Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- interj. Used as a mild or ironic oath: "Gadzooks! Is there a panic detector, akin to a smoke detector, that sniffs anxiety in the air?” ( George F. Will).
Wiktionary
- interj. archaic An expression of surprise, shock etc.
Etymologies
- Contraction of God’s hooks, with reference to the nails of the crucifixion of Jesus. (Wiktionary)
- Perhaps alteration of God's hooks, the nails of the crucifixion of Christ. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“In addition, they considered the surprising success of Mr. Marmaduke Fennel's eighteenth-century story, For Love of a Lady, as compared with the more moderate sales of Miss Elspeth Lancaster's In Scarlet Sidon, that candid romance of the brothel; deducing therefrom that the "gadzooks" and "by'r lady" type of reading-matter was ready to revive in vogue.”
“Isn't the lady writing, not in her original Bangla (red lines again!) or Bengali (better!) but – gadzooks – in English?”
“This afternoon, two local Union 76/Conoco Phillips (gadzooks, these mergers make for long names) gas stations in my Los Angeles neighborhood posted the number I recently anticipated would be the price this summer: full serve 91-Octane (premium) gasoline: $4.99/gallon.”
“The Mail On Sunday might be a sewer of sleaze and disreputable journalism, but gadzooks, it does have its uses sometimes..”
“The TZs are pronounced like the terminal ds in the word dads or like the dz in gadzooks.”
World's Best Tzatziki Sauce Recipe - Greek Yogurt and Cucumber Sauce
“Hopefully by now you will be aware of my colleague Travis - gadzooks, he is Timothy Claypole, and he seems to have inherited some of his magical powers.”
“And thy chiefest accomplishment is taking snuff with a bel air, patching, painting, powdering like a woman, and squeaking like an eunuch, gadzooks.”
“Have you, good master [gramercies, gadzooks, etc., according to taste], a couple of sugar figures in Spanish dress, each draped in a cloak?”
“A meal at the club, and gadzooks but his stomach was in arms!”
“My engaging friend here has -- an I mistake not -- a passport ready for me in the pocket of his sable-hued coat, and as we are hoping effectually to spit one another over there ... gadzooks! but there's the specific purpose ....”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘gadzooks’.
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one word exclamations
keep it rated G please, thanks!
( open list, randomness )zoiks, sheesh, gosh, shucks, jeez, woot, heck, thunderation, oops, gadzooks, what, hey and 90 more...
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phrontistery - g
from phrontistery.info
gabardine, gabbart, gabble, gabbro, gabelle, gabion, gablock, gad, gadarene, gadoid, gadroon, gadzookery and 439 more...
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old timey talk
Words or Sayings from the 1920's or whatever that no one really uses anymore (at least in that context).
scram, bearcat, heavens to betsy, dick, double-cross, ducky, gams, goofy, hooch, jalopy, john, joe and 174 more...
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The weird, the wonderful and the plai...
Loved for their ingenuity, an exact description, or simply for the pure joy of it.
acidulous, aprosdoketon, higgledy-piggledy, lexicographical, ninja, audacious, somnabulist, shivaree, amorphous, quidnunc, glib, melancholy and 353 more...
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LQTM
Words that make me Laugh Quietly to Myself (its more honest) or refer to humor.
antiphrasis, lucus a non lucendo, abderian, pantagruelism, Rabelaisian, copypasta, take my wife, please, muchacha, jocoserious, lusus naturae, punster, numnuts and 9 more...
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Euphemisms for Curses
dang, darn, heck, shucks, shoot, dad gummit, dad burn it, gol dingit, sheesh, jeez, tarnation, consarn it and 8 more...
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Yoinks, Zoinks, & Zounds!
A collection of interjections and verbal ejaculations.
yoinks, zoinks, zounds, crikey, lawsy, oomph, unf, shazbot, lordy, mox nix, cosmic, no dice and 30 more...
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Fun Words
Words that are fun to say....
gobbledygook, jings, crivens, hullabaloo, wheech, brouhaha, pizzazz, harum-scarum, namby-pamby, pussyfoot, frippery, pitter-patter and 333 more...
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Pluralia Tantum
Nouns that are common in plural form but are non-existent or rarely used in singular form.
scissors, thanks, clothes, remains, tights, trousers, pants, news, billiards, means, mathematics, physics and 221 more...
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kat's words
ecumenical, cacophony, clatter, marimba, bamboo, saffron, slice, mercurial, pomegranate, cranky, slipshod, scritch and 511 more...
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Carlos' Words
monstropolous, absquatulate
pinguid, triffid, calque, refulgent, monstropolous, Seanchaí, clinquant, Chryselephantine ..., peavey, milium, swage, Burtillon, Burtil... and 217 more...
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The Collection
A somewhat discriminatory list of words and phrases collected for their euphonic or arcane appeal, interesting etymology, or concise definition of an otherwise unnamed phenomenon or concept.
ziggurat, neophilia, sucker punch, soporific, epoch, tundra, fiat, idiotproof, miscellany, metaphysics, cryptozoology, dysphoria and 850 more...
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Words. Just words.
Our chief weapons are words, that's all. Just words. Only words, not justly words, that is.
That is to say that there are only words in this list, not words that are just, although s...profligacy, monty, the arc of history, luddite, peremptory, brusque, languid, callipygian, perniciously, insidiousness, camelot, perforce and 189 more...
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TheLastGoodNameLeft
The Last Good Words Left
ephemera, gammon, errata, ellipses, octopi, heteronormative, polyp, intersectionality, theses, california, halfback, fullback and 555 more...
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mccaff's Words
schadenfreude, defenestration, monogamous, epipsychidion, chintz, befall, brouhaha, shenanigans, hooligans, lambasted, servitude, portcullis and 113 more...
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Words of Whimsy & Grace
abecedary, addendum, ampersand, anachronism, avuncular, balderdash, barnacle, befuddle, behemoth, bejeebers, blabbermouth, blatherskite and 465 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for gadzooks.
Durvin I had always heard the 'hooks' were just old slang for 'hands.' Oct 6, 2010
reesetee Good heavens, you're right! ;-) Jul 20, 2007
uselessness I kinda doubt it was. Nonreligious people use religiously inspired slang all the time. Possibly just to annoy the religious people. ;-) Jul 20, 2007
arby You know, this is just creepy. Why the hell would an Xtian want to use an epithet referring to the nails on the cross? Religious people are weird. Of course, that's assuming it was a Christian who came up with the phrase. Jul 19, 2007
sionnach God's hooks (referring, I think, to the nails in the cross) Feb 14, 2007