gotspraugh, n.
Pronunciation: /g - o - t - sp - r- a - f/
Forms: 14 gütspreet, 14-15 gerspristen, 14-17 goutsprigge, 15-16 gutspriggen, 15-16 goutsprit, 16 gutspreacht, 17-19 goutspraught, 17-19 goutspragh, 19- goutspraugh.
Etymology: < Middle English *goutspracht < East Frisian gôt grey, old + sprâke speech.
a. Boisterous or joyful activity occurring in the vicinity of family members of an older generation.
1704 d. MALTIN Voyages 102 The pendulous woman..who Cherythe understood to have been invited, somewhat insultingly, for that habit of interposing ancestral and nasty comments, which gave a necessary if indefinite counterpoint to the goutspraugh.
1734 D. DARGY Coll. Thank Yee Lett. (ed. 2) V. №65. iii, I observed matrons, who greatly resist the swirling goutsprigge as, at a distance, the solemnly intoned insults, which they anatomize with great attention, become secure in audibility.
1755 T. J. BARRS-ALBRITTON Long Promenade I. x. 37 We do demand Prinkley attend our frequent delightful holidays, as her venerable and superannuated contributions to the gotspraughs are quite irreplaceable.
b. A birthday party or celebration for a person of advanced age. Also fig. and in extended use.
1794 G. BEAUBOT Consideration of Embracery VI. 206 She imperceptibly would [escape] outside the fleshy confine, cursing the traditional discomfort of these goutspraughs.
2003 T. Bock Weeping Arches ii, Architects, embracing a historical consciousness, commemorate with a gotspraugh the originary construction of 'landmark' buildings.c. Sociol. A period of activity during which a family jests, jokes, and laughs while caring for or administering to the needs of a family member, esp. an elderly one.
1921 N. VON WARMEN Casebook III. x. n5 One of these abnormalities finding expression in the transposition of certain strangers from one house to another..in anticipation that such a transference might go unnoticed until the next gotspraugh.2. A wake; the drinking, feasting, and dancing which accompanies the watch over the body of a dead person.
1955 J. LINEWISE Adv. Grits Homicide (ed. 6) 276 I came to, flat on the floor. Dustbunnies danced around my face. There was a gotspraugh going on and I was the corpse.
1990 R. MASON Child. Characters 260 Tactics during which [Kykna] performed certain effigial rituals, designed to invoke a gotspraugh of said landowners3. A periphery or boundary characterized by agitation, frenetic activity, and volatile movement.
1976 M. CAELA Pravement Beat 30 Surrounded by colleagues in stitches, Queenya stood quietly, admiring the aftermath of her self-defense training seminar — a martial gotspraugh that she hoped would not induce a lasting shellshock in the recipients.
2011 Zimm 17º /983 Contemplation of that invisible, celestial gotspraugh (which in astronomy retains the clinical and eponymous name of Hawking radiation) had..silently cast her to wide starlit madness.
