gooses

1. 1
   verbslang

   Third-person singular present of goose.

   The pilot gooses the engine to build speed before takeoff.

   Every spring the manager gooses the sales team with a fresh bonus plan.

   Note

   The verb never takes the goose-to-geese vowel change. It inflects regularly, so a driver gooses an engine and a crowd gooses a performer off the stage. Every meaning it carries is slang: the prod, the spur, the quick taps on an accelerator, and, in UK cab work, picking up a fare who has not booked. It belongs in casual speech rather than formal writing. The same spelling also serves the plural for silly people.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of goose. Nonstandard: the usual plural is geese, but gooses is sometimes used of silly people.

   The pair of gooses at the back kept whispering and laughing through the lecture.

   Stop acting like a couple of gooses and pay attention.

   Note

   A plural that is correct only for people. For the birds and their meat, geese is the standard form, and gooses reads as an error. When goose means a silly person, though, gooses is the natural plural, as in a pair of gooses giggling at the back. The same goes for the dated South African slang goose, meaning a young woman or girlfriend. Outside those human senses, write geese.

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