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goo

nounverbnounverbverbattested in dialogue

  • //ɡuː//

Any semi-solid or liquid substance; especially one that is sticky, gummy or slippery, unpleasant, and of vague or unknown composition, such as slime or semen.

noun

  1. 1

    informalAny semi-solid or liquid substance; especially one that is sticky, gummy or slippery, unpleasant, and of vague or unknown composition, such as slime or semen.

    I stepped in some goo and had a terrible time getting the sticky stuff off my shoes.

  2. 2

    figurativeExcessive, showy sentimentality.

    […] To be really human is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naive and goo-prone and generally pathetic, is to be in some basic interior way forever infantile, some sort of not-quite-right-looking infant dragging itself anaclitically around the map, with big wet eyes and froggy-soft skin, huge skull, gooey drool.

Etymology

Etymology tree English burgood Proto-Germanic *bermô? Proto-West Germanic *bermō Old English beormader. Welsh burym Proto-Indo-European *keh₂ulisder. Latin caulisbor. Proto-Brythonic *kawl Middle Welsh cawl Welsh cawl ? Persian برغولder. Persian پرغولder. Arabic بُرْغُل (burḡul)der.? Proto-Indo-European *ǵews- Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Indo-European *ǵéwstus Proto-Italic *gustus Latin gustus Middle French goûtder. Middle French ragoûterder. French ragoûtbor. English ragout? English burgoo? Proto-Indo-European *gleyH- Proto-Indo-European *glóh₁ytn̥ Proto-Italic *gloiten Latin glūten Late Latin glūs Old French glubor. Middle English glew English glue? English goo American English, attested since 1903, possibly from burgoo (“thick porridge”); alternatively, an alteration of glue.

verb

  1. 1

    To apply goo to something.

    They gooed their hair with some fragrant styling product.

noun

  1. 1

    A noise made by a baby trying to imitate speech.

    The infant's goos and gahs were endearing.

Etymology

Onomatopoeic of baby talk.

verb

  1. 1

    To produce baby talk.

    The baby gooed while daddy made sappy faces at it.

    The baby gooed but didn't let go; instead he decided he would taste it. Lou quickly tried to get the baby to release his trophy but to no avail.

    The baby gooed. Danny smiled.

verb

  1. 1

    Elongated form of go.

    Lowry put out a social media post to his more than 907,000 Twitter followers saying, "Miami Heat X Kyle Lowry" and "Let's Goo!!" followed by five fire emojis.

  2. 2

    Variant of goPronunciation spelling of go.

    Well, then, things are settled, an' I'll goo an' finish yond pigs off," said my new employer, rising from his chair, and flapping his crush hat upon his head as if he was killing flies.

    I means to goo to th' mop, 'er sez, fur I waants a chahinge.[…]'T wuz to w:Muckley mop 'er went.

Etymology

See go.

Forms

plural
goos
past tense
gooed
past participle
gooed
present participle
gooing
third person singular
goos

goo · Any semi-solid or liquid substance; especially one that is sticky, gummy or slippery, unpleasant, and of vague or unknown composition, such as slime…

Goo · A surname.good · Of a person or an animal: Acting in the interest of what is…Good · A surname.
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).