Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A member of a Germanic people who invaded the Roman Empire in the early centuries of the Christian era.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A member of the East Germanic tribe, who invaded the Roman Empire in the 3rd to 5th centuries.
  • proper noun figuratively uncivilized person, barbarian, Vandal

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Middle English Gothes, Goths, from Late Latin Gothī, of Germanic origin; akin to Old English Gota and Old Norse Goti, Goth.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English Gothes, Gotes, both pl., partly from Old English Gotan, Goþan, both pl., s. forms Gota, Goþa; partly from Late Latin Gothi, both pl., s. form Goth; of Germanic origin; compare Old Norse Goti "Goth", compare Gothic *𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌰𐌽𐍃 ("Gutans") pl. "Goths", from Proto-Germanic *gutô (latter two terms are ablaut grades) perhaps from the Proto-Germanic *geutanan, but more likely from Proto-Germanic *gudanaz (see also good, God, Odin, Gutan, Wotan, Woden). Related terms are Gudai, Gutan, Gutnish, Gotlander, Geat, Gaut, Got, and probably Catalonia, Catalan.

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Examples

  • I’ve been watching the rare goth lesbian beauty in the video Overload Created by two Germans; the country that invented modern Goth.

    Archive 2007-03-01 Elizabeth McClung 2007

  • I’ve been watching the rare goth lesbian beauty in the video Overload Created by two Germans; the country that invented modern Goth.

    Lesbian goth, gothic self harmers, cutters & a love story Elizabeth McClung 2007

  • I did read just the other day that the term Goth, in its original meaning was derogatory.

    Let's Do the Time Warp Again: Gothic Ideology Hels 2009

  • Middle Ages the term Goth served — as it still does today — to designate the Germanic tribal group that migrated into Spain, southwestern France, and Italy in the late phase of the Roman Empire.

    CONCEPT OF GOTHIC WAYNE DYNES 1968

  • Through this process of identification the scope of the term Goth expanded enormously: geographically, to the borders of the Germanic world in Scandinavia and its offshoots in Iceland and Green - land, as well as to England; and temporally, reaching early modern times so that, for example, it seemed natural to hail the seventeenth-century Swedish king

    CONCEPT OF GOTHIC WAYNE DYNES 1968

  • But then, he said, in recent years, he changed and started this different lifestyle, dressing in all black, and doing sort of what they call the Goth lifestyle.

    CNN Transcript Oct 21, 2005 2005

  • The "Goth" is put back into Gotham, with Batman being much more of a gargoyle figure.

    Review of Batman Begins Richard Nokes 2005

  • The "Goth" is put back into Gotham, with Batman being much more of a gargoyle figure.

    Archive 2005-06-01 Richard Nokes 2005

  • • One could says that Goth is an artistic movement centered around music and fashion.

    Church tries Goth Liturgy 2008

  • Goth is a look that simultaneously expresses and cures its own sense of alienation.

    Boing Boing 2008

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