▪ I. gush, n.
(gʌʃ)
[f. gush v.]
1. The action or an act of gushing; a copious or sudden emission of fluid; a rush (of water, blood, tears); concr. a quantity of fluid so emitted; a torrent of water, a flood of tears, etc.
| c 1682 P. Walker in Napier Life Viscount Dundee (1859) I. i. 157 When I saw his blood run, I wished that all the blood of the Lord's..enemies in Scotland had been in his veins;..I would have rejoiced to have seen it all gone out with a gush. 1712 Steele Spect. No. 468 ¶8 Giving him..one Gush of Tears, for so many Bursts of Laughter. 1753 Borlase in Phil. Trans. XLVIII. 92 It fell as several separate balls of fire; but upon the house as a large gush, or torrent. 1834 M. Scott Cruise Midge (1859) 326 The..gushes from the rudder swirl..astern mellifluously. 1835–6 Todd Cycl. Anat. I. 238/2 The blood..never flows with a gush or per saltum. 1841 Catlin N. Amer. Ind. (1844) II. xxxii. 4 Pardon this gush from a stranger's eyes. 1851 Mayne Reid Scalp Hunt. xl. 313 A red gush spurted over the garments of the Indian. 1885–6 Spurgeon Treas. Dav. Ps. cxlv. 6–7 A song fresh, free, constant, joyous, refreshing, abundant, like the gush of a spring. |
b. The rustling sound of wind among trees.
| 1866 G. Macdonald Ann. Q. Neighb. xii. (1878) 243 It [the wind] rose with a slow gush in the trees. |
2. transf. and fig. A sudden and violent outbreak; a ‘burst’. a. Of physical phenomena: A gust or rush of wind (now dial.); a burst (of light, heat, sound); a burst (of bloom).
| 1704 Collect. Voy. (Churchill) III. 649/2 Violent gushes of Wind. 1821 Clare Vill. Minstr. II. 16 Till bursting off it [a damm'd brook] plopt, In running gushes of wild murmuring groans. a 1825 Forby Voc. E. Anglia, Gush, a gust of wind. 1840 Dickens Barn. Rudge lxxii, The host of that tavern approached in a gush of cheerful light to help them to dismount. 1849 Ruskin Sev. Lamps vi. §1. 162 A blue gush of violets, and cowslip bells in sunny places. 1851 D. G. Mitchell Fresh Glean. Wks. (1864) 323 A faint gush of a distant bugle-note came up over the evening air. 1871 Tyndall Fragm. Sci. (1879) I. ii. 54 A gush of invisible radiant heat. 1892 Garden 27 Aug. 196 This is about the first gush of bloom. |
b. Of feeling and its expression, of action, condition, etc.
| 1715–20 Pope Iliad xxiv. 638 Each by turns indulged the gush of woe. 1812 Landor Count Julian Wks. 1846 II. 512 The troubled dreams and deafening gush of youth. 1856 Emerson Eng. Traits, Char. Wks. (Bohn) II. 59 The Saxon melancholy in the vulgar rich and poor appears as gushes of ill-humour. 1874 L. Stephen Hours in Library (1892) I. iii. 110 There are more frequent gushes of sustained rhetoric. 1878 Browning Poets Croisic 105 Gush on gush of praise. |
c. colloq. A whiff, smell.
| 1838 Dickens Old C. Shop vii, The gush of tobacco came from the shop. 1859 Sala Gas-light & D. iv. 43 A gush of fish, stale and fresh, stretches across Thames Street. |
d. U.S. colloq. (See quot.)
| 1859 Bartlett Dict. Amer., Gush, a great abundance. A Texan would say, ‘We have got a gush of peaches in our neck of the woods’. |
3. colloq. Objectionably effusive or sentimental display of feeling, esp. in verbal expression.
| 1866 Sat. Rev. 4 Aug. 137/2 Some romantic nonsense, born of gush and the circulating library. 1869 Daily News 14 Dec., The book altogether is silly, and full of gush and twaddle. 1872 O. W. Holmes Poet Breakf.-t. v. (1885) 124 He didn't go in ‘for sentiment... Gush was played out’. |
▪ II. gush, v.
(gʌʃ)
Forms: 4–5 gosshe, gusche, 6 gus(s)he, guszhe, gousshe, gowshe, 6– gush.
[ME. gosshe, gusche; as the word is wanting in OE. and the other Teut. langs., there is nothing to forbid the supposition that it originated onomatopœically in ME. If it be of pre-English origin, it must app. be a derivative with suffix k or sk from the wk. grade of one of the Teut. roots *geut- or *geus- (see below), in which case its echoic expressiveness would be an accidental development.
The current but phonologically untenable view is that the word is an adoption of some one of the Scandinavian or LG. words representing the Teut. root *geus- (:gaus-: gū̆s-), several of which closely resemble it in sound and sense; cf., for instance, ON. giósa str. vb., to spurt, gush, mod.Icel. gusa a gush, gusa wk. vb., to gush, MDu. goysen (Du. dial. guisen, guizen, goezen), Du. gutsen, gudsen to gush. The root *geus- (which does not occur in OE.) is usually regarded as derived from pre-Teut. *gheud- (Teut. *geut-, OE. ᵹéotan to pour: see yete v., also gote, gut) + suffix t, according to the phonetic law by which a dental + t became in OTeut. ss, simplified after a long vowel or diphthong to s; the wk. form gus- with single s being developed analogically.]
1. intr. ‘To flow or rush out with violence’ (J.); to issue suddenly or in copious streams, as water or other fluid when released from confinement, blood from a wound, etc. Freq. with down, in, forth, out, up.
| ? a 1400 Morte Arth. 1130 Bothe þe guttez and the gorre guschez owte at ones. c 1400 Destr. Troy 1607 The water..Gosshet through Godardys & other grete vautes. 1535 Coverdale Ps. lxxvii[i]. 16 He brought waters out of the stony rocke, so that they gusshed out like the ryuers. ― Acts i. 18 [He] hanged himself, and brast a sunder in the myddes, and all his bowels guszhed out. 1585 T. Washington tr. Nicholay's Voy. ii. xii. 47 The blacke and Euxine Sea..gusheth out through the mouth of her wyth great vyolence intoo the Sea Ponticque. 1590 Spenser F.Q. i. i. 24 A streame of cole-black blood forth gushed from her corse. 1644 Evelyn Diary 7 Nov., In the nave of the church gushes a fountain. a 1691 Boyle Hist. Air (1692) 176 Very exuberant springs..issuing from the tops of most of the other mountains, gushing out in great spouts. 1727 S. Switzer Pract. Gard. ii. vii. 57 The air gushes in with too great violence. 1728 Pope Dunc. i. 211 Then gush'd the tears. 1820 W. Irving Sketch Bk. I. 52 He could not speak, but the tears gushed into his eyes. 1838 Thirlwall Greece II. xv. 284 A hot sulphureous spring gushes up in a copious stream. 1853 Kane Grinnell Exp. xxvii. (1856) 220 A cloud of vapor gushes out at every chink. 1860 Tyndall Glac. i. xxiii. 161 The rain at length began to gush in torrents. |
¶ b. Taken as an echoic word.
| 1530 Palsgr. 573/2, I gowshe, I make a noyse, as water dothe that cometh hastely out... Herke howe this water goussheth with strykynge agaynst the stones: escoutez comment ceste eaue bruyt, or grondelle en heurtant contre ces pierres. |
2. transf. and fig. To issue, emanate, or be emitted copiously. Often directly fig.
| 1586 J. Hooker Girald. Irel. in Holinshed II. 82/2 To stop vp the spring, from whense all the enuious suspicions gushed. 1638 F. Junius Paint. of Ancients 16 Their Poems gushing forth as out of a plentifull water-spring. a 1718 Rowe Royal Convert iv. i. Wks. (1720) 61 The native Greatness of my Spirit fails, Thus melts, and thus runs gushing thro' my Eyes. 1732 Pope Ess. Man i. 134 For me, Health gushes from a thousand springs. 1826 Mrs. Browning Ess. Mind, Wisdom's music from thy lips hath gush'd. 1852 Hawthorne Wonder-Bk., Paradise Children (1879) 90 Sweet voices of children,..gushing out in merry laughter. 1856 Bryant Poems, Antiq. Freedom ii, Wavy tresses gushing from the cap. 1860 Kingsley Misc. I. 366 As for his tenderness..it gushes forth toward every creature. 1860 Tyndall Glac. i. xviii. 125 The sunlight gushed down upon the heights. |
3. Of a person, parts of the body, etc.: To have a copious flow of blood, tears, etc.; also with out, forth. Const. with, † of, in, into (tears, blood, etc.).
| 1530 Palsgr. 573/2 Sodaynly his nose gousshed out of blood. 1535 Coverdale Ps. cxviii. [cxix.] 136 Myne eyes gusshe out with water. 1561 Hist. Jacob & 12 Sons (Collier) 24 She..smit her nose that gushed all in blood. 1612 N. Field Woman is a Weathercock i. ii. C 4 b, Gush eyes, thumpe hand, swell heart, Buttons flie open. a 1617 P. Bayne Lectures (1634) 249 Whose eyes would not have gushed out? 1631 Weever Anc. Funeral Mon. 254 Gushing out with teares, he said [etc.]. 1741 Richardson Pamela (1883) I. 335 My dear father, not able to contain himself,..gushed out into a flood of tears. 1811 Ora & Juliet iv. 63 His nose gushed out with blood. 1821 Keats Isabella xvi, Why were they proud? Because their marble founts Gush'd with more pride than do a wretch's tears? a 1845 Hood Desert-Born xvii, My nostrils gush'd, and thrice my teeth had bitten through my tongue. 1874 L. Stephen Hours in Library (1892) I. vii. 238 He..suddenly gushed forth in streams of wondrous eloquence. |
4. trans. ‘To emit in a copious effusion’ (J.). Also with out.
| 1553 Bradford Serm. Repent. (1574) E iv b, We haue gushed out this geare more aboundantly in word and deede. c 1575 Fulke Confut. Doctrine Purgatory (1577) 367 He gusheth out nothing but bragging and faceing. 1635 Heylyn Hist. Sabbath (1636) ii. 216 It [sc. a cake] gushed out blood. a 1656 Bp. Hall Rem. Wks. (1660) 107 Davids eyes gusht out rivers of waters. 1756 Mason Ode to Memory 16 Poems (1764) 17 Else vainly soft..would flow The soothing sadness of thy warbled woe:..Vainly..The vine gush nectar, and the virgin bloom. 1821 Keats Isabella xv, His ears gush'd blood. 1859 Blackw. Mag. Sept. 255/2 Marble wash-hand basins gushing water mysteriously at the touching of a spring. 1898 G. Meredith Odes Fr. Hist. 76 They were Ready to gush the flood of vain regret. |
5. intr. (colloq.) To act with impulse or effusiveness of manner; to give verbal expression to feelings or opinions in an over-effusive, exaggerated, or sentimental fashion. Also trans. with quoted words as obj.
| 1864 Webster, Gush..2. To act with a sudden and rapid impulse. 1873 R. Broughton Nancy I. 91, I go to bed, feeling rather small, as one who has gushed, and whose gush has not been welcome to the recipient. 1883 M. E. Braddon Gold. Calf vii, ‘Yes, and you saw much of each other, and you became heart-friends’, gushed Miss Wolf. 1887 Ruskin Præterita II. 119 There were few things he [Turner] hated more than hearing people gush about particular drawings. |
▪ III. gush, adv.
(gʌʃ)
[f. gush v.]
With a gush. In quots. quasi-int. as an echoic word.
| 1608 Tourneur Rev. Trag. v. i. Wks. 1878 II. 132 He that dyes drunke falls into hell fire like a Bucket o' water, gush, gush! a 1845 Hood Compass x, When, gush! a flood of brine came down The sky-light—quite a fountain. |