get

English Online Dictionary. What means get‎? What does get mean?

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ɡɛt/
• IPA^(key): (regionally restricted, less formal) /ɡɪt/
• Rhymes: -ɛt

Etymology 1

From Middle English geten, from Old Norse geta, from Proto-Germanic *getaną. Cognate with Old English ġietan (whence also English yet), Old Saxon getan (“to get, to gain sth.”), Old High German pigezzan (“to uphold”), Gothic 𐌱𐌹𐌲𐌹𐍄𐌰𐌽 (bigitan, “to find, discover”)), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰed- (“to seize”).

Verb

get (third-person singular simple present gets, present participle getting, simple past got or (archaic) gat, past participle got or (United States, Canada) gotten or (Geordie) getten)

1. (transitive or ditransitive) To obtain; to acquire.

2. (transitive) To receive.
3. (transitive, in a perfect construction, with present-tense meaning) To have. See usage notes.

4. (transitive) To fetch, bring, take.
5. (copulative) To become, or cause oneself to become.
   • November 1, 1833, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Table Talk

     His chariot wheels get hot by driving fast.
6. (transitive) To cause to become; to bring about.
7. (transitive) To cause to do.
8. (transitive) To cause to come or go or move.
9. (intransitive, with various prepositions, such as into, over, or behind; for specific idiomatic senses see individual entries get into, get over, etc.) To adopt, assume, arrive at, or progress towards (a certain position, location, state).

10. (transitive) To cover (a certain distance) while travelling.

11. (intransitive, catenative) (with full infinitive or gerund-participle) To begin (doing something or to do something).

12. (transitive) To take or catch (a scheduled transportation service).

13. (transitive) To respond to (a telephone call, a doorbell, etc).

14. (intransitive, catenative) (with full infinitive) To be able, be permitted, or have the opportunity (to do something desirable or ironically implied to be desirable).

16. (transitive, informal) To understand. (compare get it)

17. (transitive, informal) To be told; be the recipient of (a question, comparison, opinion, etc.).
18. (auxiliary, informal) Used with the past participle to form the dynamic passive voice of a dynamic verb. Compared with static passive with to be, this emphasizes the commencement of an action or entry into a state.

    Synonym: to be
19. (impersonal, informal) Used with a pronoun subject, usually you but sometimes one, to indicate that the object of the verb exists, can occur or is otherwise typical.
20. (transitive) To become ill with or catch (a disease).

21. (transitive, informal) To catch out, trick successfully.

22. (transitive, informal) To perplex, stump.

23. (transitive) To find as an answer.

24. (transitive, informal) To bring to reckoning; to catch (usually as a criminal); to effect retribution.

25. (transitive) To hear completely; catch.

26. (transitive) To getter.

27. (now rare) To beget (of a father).
28. (archaic) To learn; to commit to memory; to memorize; sometimes with out.
29. (imperative, informal) Used with a personal pronoun to indicate that someone is being pretentious or grandiose.
30. (intransitive, informal, chiefly imperative) To go, to leave; to scram.
31. (euphemistic) To kill.
32. (intransitive, obsolete) To make acquisitions; to gain; to profit.
33. (transitive) To measure.

34. (transitive) To cause someone to laugh.

Usage notes

• The meaning "to have" is found only in perfect tenses but has present meaning; hence "I have got" has the same meaning as "I have". (Sometimes the form had got is used to mean "had", as in "He said they couldn't find the place because they'd got the wrong address".) In speech and in all except formal writing, the word "have" is normally reduced to /v/ and spelled "-'ve" or dropped entirely (e.g. "I got a God-fearing woman, one I can easily afford", Slow Train, Bob Dylan), leading to nonstandard usages such as "he gots" = "he has", "he doesn't got" = "he doesn't have".
• Some dialects (e.g. American English dialects) use both gotten and got as past participles, while others (e.g. dialects of Southern England) use only got. In dialects that use both, got is used for the meanings "to have" and "to have to", while gotten is used for all other meanings. This allows for a distinction between "I've gotten a ticket" (I have received or obtained a ticket) vs. "I've got a ticket" (I currently have a ticket).
• "get" is one of the most common verbs in English, and the many meanings may be confusing for language learners. The following table indicates some of the different constructions found, along with the most common meanings of each:

Conjugation

Synonyms

• (obtain): acquire, come by, have
• (receive): receive, be given
• (fetch): bring, fetch, retrieve
• (become): become
• (cause to become): cause to be, cause to become, make
• (cause to do): make
• (arrive): arrive at, reach
• (go, leave): get out go, leave, scram
• (adopt or assume (a position or state)): go, move
• (begin): begin, commence, start
• (catch (a means of public transport)): catch, take
• (respond to (telephone, doorbell)): answer
• (be able to; have the opportunity to do): be able to
• (informal: understand): dig, follow, make sense of, understand
• (informal: be (used to form the passive)): be
• (informal: catch (a disease)): catch, come down with
• (informal: trick): con, deceive, dupe, hoodwink, trick
• (informal: perplex): confuse, perplex, stump
• (find as an answer): obtain
• (bring to reckoning; to catch (as a criminal)): catch, nab, nobble
• (physically assault): assault, beat, beat up
• (informal: hear): catch, hear
• (getter): getter

Antonyms

• (antonym(s) of “obtain”): lose

Derived terms

Related terms

• guess

Translations

Noun

get (plural gets)

1. (dated) Offspring, especially illegitimate.
2. Lineage.
3. (sports, tennis) A difficult return or block of a shot.
4. (informal) Something gained; an acquisition.

Etymology 2

Variant of git.

Noun

get (plural gets)

1. (UK, Ireland, regional) Synonym of git (“contemptible person”)

Usage notes

• Although get is the original word, the variant git is more common.

Etymology 3

From Hebrew גֵּט (gēṭ).

Noun

get (plural gets or gittim or gitten)

1. (Judaism) A Jewish writ of divorce.

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:get.

Alternative forms

• gett
• ghet

References

Further reading

• “get”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “get”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• GTE, TGE, teg

Azerbaijani

Verb

get

1. second-person singular imperative of getmək

Chinese

Etymology

From English get.

Pronunciation

Verb

get

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) to understand, often used with "到"

Icelandic

Verb

get

1. inflection of geta:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. singular imperative

Ladino

Etymology

From Hebrew גט.

Noun

get m (Latin spelling)

1. divorce

Limburgish

Alternative forms

• jett (Krefeld)
• gätt, gädd (Eupen)

Etymology

From Middle Dutch iewet, iet. The diphthong /ie̯/ developed into /je/ word-initially, as it did in High German, and the onset was then enclitically hardened to ⟨g⟩ (/ʝ/). Cognate with Dutch iets, Central Franconian jet, northern Luxembourgish jett, gett, English aught.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʝæt/
• Hyphenation: get
• Rhymes: -æt

Adverb

get

1. some, somewhat
2. very

   Ich woar mer get blij. ― I was very happy.

Pronoun

get

1. something, anything
2. (indefinite pronoun) Placed before a plural noun, indicating general cases of people or things: some

   Doe has get höng. ― You own some dogs.

Mauritian Creole

Verb

get

1. Medial form of gete

Middle English

Alternative forms

• geet, gete, jet, gette, geete, jete, jeete

Etymology

From a northern form of Old French jayet, jaiet, gaiet, from Latin gagātēs, from Ancient Greek Γαγάτης (Gagátēs).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dʒɛːt/, /dʒɛt/

Noun

get (uncountable)

2. jet, hardened coal
3. A bead made of jet.
4. A jet-black pigment.

Descendants

• English: jet

References

• “ǧē̆t, n.(2).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-24.

Old English

Adverb

ġēt

1. Alternative form of ġīet

Old Norse

Etymology

From geta.

Noun

get n

1. (rare) a guess

Declension

Verb

get

1. first-person singular present indicative of geta
2. second-person singular imperative of geta

References

• “get”, in Geir T. Zoëga (1910) A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press

Old Swedish

Alternative forms

• ᚵᚽᛏ

Etymology

From Old Norse geit, from Proto-Germanic *gaits.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʝeːt/

Noun

gēt f

1. goat

Declension

Descendants

• Swedish: get

Romanian

Etymology

From French Gètes, Latin Getae, from Ancient Greek Γέται (Gétai).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d͡ʒet/
• Rhymes: -et

Noun

get m (plural geți, feminine equivalent getă)

1. Get, one of the Getae, Greek name for the Dacian people

   Synonym: dac

Declension

Swedish

Etymology

From Old Swedish gēt, from Old Norse geit, from Proto-Germanic *gaits, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰayd- (“goat”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /jeːt/

Noun

get c

1. goat

Declension

Derived terms

• Getapulien (“Småland, south-Swedish region”)
• getskägg (“goatee”)

References

• get in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• get in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• get in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)
• Svensk MeSH

Anagrams

• teg

Yola

Etymology

From Middle English geten, from Old Norse geta, from Proto-Germanic *getaną.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡɛt/

Verb

get (third-person singular geeth, simple past godth)

1. to get

References

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 111