gusher
(ˈgʌʃə(r))
[f. gush v. + -er1.]
One who or that which gushes.
1. One who is over-effusive or sentimental in the expression of opinion or feeling.
| 1864 E. Yates Broken to Harness vi, The enthusiastic gusher who flings his or herself upon our necks, and insists upon sharing our sorrow. 1882 M. E. Braddon Mt. Royal I. viii. 234 ‘That is too lovely’, urged the gusher. 1892 Chamb. Jrnl. 7 May 292/1 You are no impulsive gusher. |
2. orig. U.S. A gas-well or oil-well from which the material flows profusely without pumping. Also fig. and transf.
| 1886 Pall Mall G. 13 Oct. 6/1 Tagieff's ‘gusher’ beats out and out every previous record in the oil regions of the two hemispheres. 1892 Harper's Mag. May 906/2 In South Dakota..there are already more than 50 high-pressure wells or ‘gushers’ as they call them there. 1930 Times Lit. Suppl. 24 July 608/2 Mr. Thomas Wolfe's novel..might be called a ‘gusher’; for Mr. Wolfe's words come spouting up with all the force of a subterranean flood..breaking through the overlying strata of repression. 1934 Dylan Thomas 18 Poems 30 Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky Spout to the rod. 1936 I. L. Idriess Cattle King xxiv. 214 He dreamt of artesian bores. Out in the ‘dry belt’ a few both private and government ‘gushers’ had now been struck. 1959 C. Ogburn Marauders (1960) vii. 223 A PFC..awakened at first light by a gusher from a mule towering above him from which he was protected by the fortuitous interposition of a log. 1970 Times (Canada Suppl.) p. iv/3 Only a few weeks ago Imperial Oil of Canada said cautiously they had found a gusher with considerable promise, the first oil strike in the Canadian North-West Territories. |