gopher

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See also: Gopher

English[edit]

pocket gopher (1)

Pronunciation[edit]

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈɡəʊfə/
  • Audio (Southern England)(file)
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˈɡoʊfɚ/
  • Rhymes: -əʊfə(ɹ)

Etymology 1[edit]

Perhaps an adaptation of Cajun French gaufre (literally “honeycomb, waffle”), based on the analogy of holes in the ground to the indentations in a honeycomb or a waffle (doublet of waffle).[1][2] Alternatively, from Muskogean.[3]

Noun[edit]

gopher (plural gophers)

  1. A small burrowing rodent native to North and Central America, especially in the family Geomyidae (true gophers).
    Hyponym: pocket gopher
  2. A ground squirrel (Marmotinae spp.).
  3. A gopher tortoise (Gopherus spp.).
  4. A gopher rockfish (Sebastes carnatus).
Alternative forms[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
See also[edit]

Etymology 2[edit]

Noun[edit]

gopher (plural gophers)

  1. Alternative spelling of gofer
    • 2015 March 12, Bill Mann, “The film that makes me cry: Local Hero”, in The Guardian‎[1]:
      Crackpot Texan oil magnate Felix Happer (Burt Lancaster) gets the idea that a small Scottish fishing village would be a marvellous acquisition for his so-rich-it-makes-you-sick company, Knox Oil and Gas, so he sends an executive gopher named MacIntyre (because that sounds Scottish, yeah – played by Peter Riegert) to close the deal and get the pipeline pencilled in.

Further reading[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “gopher”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
  2. ^ “gopher”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  3. ^ “gopher”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
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