Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person who tends geese.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

goose +‎ herd

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Examples

  • In our Franconian village the gooseherd was a little boy, vastly proud of his job.

    Home Life in Germany Alfred Sidgwick 1894

  • In that moment of songlike inspiration, I just knew that the lame gooseherd with his pipe who takes the place of the fairy godmother in Tattercoats, and whose sweet haunting music can be heard at the end of every country lane, was a Puck; and from that, the two worlds of fairytale and Shakespeare mixed, with seamless fluency.

    Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » A local habitation and a name: Shakespeare as inspiration 2008

  • Walking behind Lazaro, I think of John Clare once more, another consummate fieldworker, a farm laborer, gooseherd, egg finder, and nest lover.

    A Year on the Wing TIM DEE 2009

  • BOY (_laughing_): You herd the geese -- a pretty gooseherd you would make!

    The Child's World Third Reader Sarah Withers Hetty Browne

  • BOY (_as king walks away_): He is a kind gentleman, whoever he may be; but take my word for it, he will never make a gooseherd.

    The Child's World Third Reader Sarah Withers Hetty Browne

  • If I should say that ganders grow also to be gelded, I suppose that some will laugh me to scorn, neither have I tasted at any time of such a fowl so served, yet have I heard it more than once to be used in the country, where their geese are driven to the field like herds of cattle by a gooseherd, a boy also no less to be marvelled at than the other.

    Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) Thomas Malory Jean Froissart

  • It was not long after sunset when old Grimaud, Count Thibaut's gooseherd, was aroused from a light sleep by a fluttering at his window.

    Masters of the Guild L. Lamprey 1910

  • If I should say that ganders grow also to be gelded, I suppose that some will laugh me to scorn, neither have I tasted at any time of such a fowl so served, yet have I heard it more than once to be used in the country, where their geese are driven to the field like herds of cattle by a gooseherd, a toy also no less to be marvelled at than the other.

    Of Wild and Tame Fowls. Chapter XIII. [1577, Book III., Chapters 9 and 11; 1587, Book III., Chapters 2 and 5 1909

  • The gooseherd, a shabby middle-aged man, looked as though he had recently lost the Battle of Marathon, and was asking himself whether the path of his retreat might not lie through the bar-parlour of the Tiger.

    Tales of the Five Towns Arnold Bennett 1899

  • 'I'll tak' it, 'said the gooseherd, in a tone that closed on the bargain like a vice.

    Tales of the Five Towns Arnold Bennett 1899

Comments

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  • It's no fun being trampled by the gooseherd.

    February 26, 2010