get

See also: -get, Get, ge- -t, get., and gët

English

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA(key): /ɡɛt/
  • Audio (General American):(file)
  • IPA(key): (regionally restricted, less formal) /ɡɪt/
  • Audio (US, regional):(file)
  • 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.
    I'm going to get a computer tomorrow from the discount store.
    Lance is going to get Mary a ring.
  2. (transitive) To receive.
    I got a computer from my parents for my birthday.
    He got a severe reprimand for that.
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 175:
      Afore we got to the shanty Colonel Applegate stuck his head out of the door. His temper had been getting raggeder all the time, and the sousing he got when he fell overboard had just about ripped what was left of it to ravellings.
  3. (transitive, in a perfect construction, with present-tense meaning) To have. See usage notes.
    I've got a concert ticket for you.
    • 2012, James Hibbitts, Joe Roberts, The Secret of Graveyard Hill, Tate Publishing, →ISBN, page 74:
      "Yeah, and I got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you," was Peter's response to his wife.
  4. (transitive) To fetch, bring, take.
    Can you get my bag from the living-room, please?
    I need to get this to the office.
  6. (copulative) To become, or cause oneself to become.
    Synonyms: grow, wax
    I'm getting hungry; how about you?
    I'm going out to get drunk.
    • November 1, 1833, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Table Talk
      His chariot wheels get hot by driving fast.
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 175:
      Afore we got to the shanty Colonel Applegate stuck his head out of the door. His temper had been getting raggeder all the time, and the sousing he got when he fell overboard had just about ripped what was left of it to ravellings.
  7. (transitive) To cause to become; to bring about.
    That song gets me so depressed every time I hear it.
    I'll get this finished by lunchtime.
    I can't get these boots off.
    I can’t get my hands warm.
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 6:
      Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand. We spent consider'ble money getting 'em reset, and then a swordfish got into the pound and tore the nets all to slathers, right in the middle of the squiteague season.
  8. (transitive) To cause to do.
    Somehow she got him to agree to it.
    I can't get it to work.
    I can't get it working.
    I can’t get my kids to go to bed early.
  9. (transitive) To cause to come or go or move.
    I got him to his room.
  10. (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).
    The actors are getting into position.
    When are we going to get to London?
    I'm getting into a muddle.
    We got behind the wall.
  11. (transitive) To cover (a certain distance) while travelling.
    to get a mile
  12. (intransitive, catenative) (with full infinitive or gerund-participle) To begin (doing something or to do something).
    We ought to get moving or we'll be late.
    After lunch we got chatting.
    I'm getting to like him better now.
  13. (transitive) To take or catch (a scheduled transportation service).
    I normally get the 7:45 train.
    I'll get the 9 a.m. [flight] to Boston.
  14. (transitive) To respond to (a telephone call, a doorbell, etc).
    Can you get that call, please? I'm busy.
  15. (intransitive, catenative) (with full infinitive) To be able, be permitted, or have the opportunity (to do something desirable or ironically implied to be desirable).
    I'm so jealous that you got to see them perform live!
    The finders get to keep 80 percent of the treasure.
    Great. I get to clean the toilets today.
  17. (transitive, informal) To understand. (compare get it)
    Yeah, I get it, it's just not funny.
    I don't get what you mean by "fun". This place sucks!
    I mentioned that I was feeling sad, so she mailed me a box of chocolates. She gets me.
  18. (transitive, informal) To be told; be the recipient of (a question, comparison, opinion, etc.).
    "You look just like Helen Mirren." / "I get that a lot."
    • 2011, “You Probably Get That A Lot (Elegant Too Remix)”, in They Might Be Giants (music), Album Raises New and Troubling Questions:
      Do you mind? Excuse me / I saw you over there / Can I just tell you ¶ Although there are millions of / Cephalophores that wander through this world / You've got something extra going on / I think you probably know ¶ You probably get that a lot / I'll bet that people say that a lot to you, girl.
  19. (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
    He got bitten by a dog.
    • 2003, Richard A. Posner, Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy‎[1], page 95:
      Of particular importance is the bureaucratic organization of European judiciaries. The judiciary is a career. You start at the bottom and get assigned and promoted at the pleasure of your superiors.
  20. (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.
    You get some very rude people here.
    It was the kind of shop you used to get in most small towns.
    • 1964, Lawrence Alloway, “Cobra Group with Lawrence Alloway, 1964”, in Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection‎[2]:
      He thinks that proper to northern man is the cellular composition, you know, the kind of thing one gets in Celtic ornamentation, for example, which a subject that interests him greatly.
    • 2021, 25:30 from the start, in No More Jockeys‎[3], season 4, episode 13, spoken by Mark Watson:
      You get non-binary people – you get people who don't identify as a man or a woman.
    • 2023 October 27, Laine Priestley, Mary Williams, “Boarding house destroyed by fire”, in Star News‎[4]:
      It was a terrible place to live. You get places like that. It is just the way it is.
  21. (transitive) To become ill with or catch (a disease).
    I went on holiday and got malaria.
  22. (transitive, informal) To catch out, trick successfully.
    He keeps calling pretending to be my boss—it gets me every time.
  23. (transitive, informal) To perplex, stump.
    That question's really got me.
  24. (transitive) To find as an answer.
    What did you get for question four?
  25. (transitive, informal) To bring to reckoning; to catch (usually as a criminal); to effect retribution.
    The cops finally got me.
    I'm gonna get him for that.
  26. (transitive) To hear completely; catch.
    Sorry, I didn't get that. Could you repeat it?
  27. (transitive) To getter.
    I put the getter into the container to get the gases.
  28. (now rare) To beget (of a father).
  29. (archaic) To learn; to commit to memory; to memorize; sometimes with out.
    to get a lesson;  to get out one's Greek lesson
    • 1662, John Fell, The life of the most learned, reverend and pious Dr. H. Hammond, page 96:
      it being harder with him to get one sermon by heart, than to pen twenty
  30. (imperative, informal) Used with a personal pronoun to indicate that someone is being pretentious or grandiose.
    Get her with her new hairdo.
    • 1966, Dorothy Fields, “If My Friends Could See Me Now”:
      Brother, get her! Draped on a bedspread made from three kinds of fur!
    • 2007, Tom Dyckhoff, Let's move to ..., The Guardian:
      Money's pouring in somewhere, because Churchgate's got lovely new stone setts, and a cultural quarter (ooh, get her) is promised.
  31. (intransitive, informal, chiefly imperative) To go, to leave; to scram.
    • 1991, Theodore Dreiser, T. D. Nostwich, Newspaper Days, University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN, page 663:
      Get, now — get! — before I call an officer and lay a charge against ye.
    • 1952, Fredric Brown, Mack Reynolds, Me and Flapjack and the Martians:
      I had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn't no flashlight and I wasn't too curious, just then, to find out what would happen if he did more than wave it at me, so I got. I went back about twenty feet or so and watched.
    • 2010, Sarah Webb, The Loving Kind, Pan Macmillan, →ISBN:
      'Go on, get. You look a state. We can't let Leo see you like that.'
    • 2012, Paul Zindel, Ladies at the Alamo, Graymalkin Media, →ISBN:
      Now go on, get! Get! Get! (she chases Joanne out the door with the hammer.)
    • 2016, April Daniels, Dreadnought, Diversion Books, →ISBN:
      " […] and then I'll switch over to the police band to know when the bacon's getting ready to stick its nose in. When I tell you to get, you get, understand?" Calamity asks as she retapes the earbud into her ear.
  32. (euphemistic) To kill.
    They’re coming to get you, Barbara.
  33. (intransitive, obsolete) To make acquisitions; to gain; to profit.
  34. (transitive) To measure.
    Did you get her temperature?
  35. (transitive) To cause someone to laugh.
    It gets me every time!
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 "Luckily, I was able to start a fire because I had got a lighter in my pocket".) 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.[1] 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).
    • Note that this does not apply to the related verbs beget, forget, whose past participles are always begotten, forgotten.
  • "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:
Construction Most common meanings Example
get + inanimate object to receive, to obtain, to take They got a cute cat today
have got + inanimate object to have, to possess She has got a nice garden
have got + person to have (as a relation) I've got a sister / a friend / a boss
get + person to understand or to catch You get me? / I'll get you
get + concept to understand He began to get the idea
get + adjective to become She's getting taller quickly
get + person + adjective to cause to become They got him full with a big dinner
get + person + object to give or to fetch We got them two cats / Get me my shoes
get + location adverb to arrive, to reach We got far away from there
get + to + location Soon she got to her destination
get + to + verb to be able to, to be permitted You get to eat ice cream
get + person + to + verb to cause to do We get them to dance every time
get + verb + -ing to begin doing, to start They got dancing right away
get + verb + -ed/-en (+ by) to be (passive voice) They got energized by the music
Conjugation
Conjugation of get
infinitive (to) get
present tense past tense
1st-person singular get got, gat2
2nd-person singular get, gettest2 got, gottest2, gattest2
3rd-person singular gets, getteth2 got
plural get got
subjunctive get got
imperative get —
participles getting got, gotten1, getten1
Synonyms
Antonyms
  • (antonym(s) of “obtain”): lose
Derived terms
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Noun

get (plural gets)

  1. (dated) Offspring, especially illegitimate.
    • 1810, Thomas Hornby Morland, The genealogy of the English race horse, page 71:
      At the time when I am making these observations, one of his colts is the first favourite for the Derby; and it will be recollected, that a filly of his get won the Oaks in 1808.
    • 1976, Frank Herbert, Children of Dune:
      You must admit that the bastard get of Paul Atreides would be no more than juicy morsels for those two [tigers].
    • 1999, George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings, Bantam, published 2011, page 755:
      ‘You were a high lord's get. Don't tell me Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell never killed a man.’
  2. Lineage.
  3. (sports, tennis) A difficult return or block of a shot.
  4. (informal) Something gotten, something gained or won; an acquisition.
    • 2008, Karen Yampolsky, Falling Out of Fashion, page 73:
      I had reconnected with the lust of my life while landing a big get for the magazine.

Etymology 2

Variant of git.

Noun

get (plural gets)

  1. (UK, Ireland, regional) Synonym of git (“contemptible person”).
    • 1990 January 13, David Quantick, Steven Wells, “Is It Rock Art Or Is It Nart?”, in New Musical Express:
      Kylie: Oi, Bono! You lazy get! Have you finished my song yet?
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.
    • 2013, Dan Cohn-Sherbok, George D. Chryssides, Dawoud El-Alami, Love, Sex and Marriage, page 143:
      In Israel, rabbinic courts can imprison men until they acquiesce and grant gets to their wives.
Quotations
  • For quotations using this term, see Citations:get.
Alternative forms

References

  1. ^ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/aue/gotten.html and http://www.miketodd.net/encyc/gotten.htm

Further reading

Anagrams

Azerbaijani

Verb

get

  1. second-person singular imperative of getmək

Chinese

Etymology

From English get.

Pronunciation

Verb

get

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese, often with 到 (dào)) to understand
    佢講嘅嘢太複雜，我get唔到佢咩意思。 [Cantonese, trad.]
    佢讲嘅嘢太复杂，我get唔到佢咩意思。 [Cantonese, simp.]
    keoi5 gong2 ge3 je5 taai3 fuk1 zaap6, ngo5 get1 m4 dou3 keoi5 me1 ji3 si1. [Jyutping]
    The stuff he's talking about is too complicated, I don't get what he means.

Icelandic

Verb

get

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

Ladino

Etymology

From Hebrew גט.

Noun

get m

  1. divorce

Limburgish

Alternative forms

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

Etymology 1

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

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /d͡ʒɛːt/, /d͡ʒɛt/

Noun

get (uncountable)

  1. jet, hardened coal
  2. A bead made of jet.
  3. A jet-black pigment.
Descendants
  • English: jet
References

Etymology 2

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ɡɛːt/, /ɡeːt/

Noun

get

  1. plural of got (“goat”)

Old English

Etymology 1

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /jet/

Noun

ġet n (Mercian, Vespasian Psalter)

  1. alternative form of ġeat
Declension

Strong a-stem:

singular plural
nominative ġet geatu
accusative ġet geatu
genitive ġetes geata
dative ġete geatum

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /jeːt/

Adverb

ġēt

  1. alternative form of ġīet

Old Norse

Etymology

From geta.

Noun

get n

  1. (rare) a guess

Declension

Declension of get (strong a-stem)
neuter singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative get getit get getin
accusative get getit get getin
dative geti getinu getum getunum
genitive gets getsins geta getanna

Verb

get

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

Further reading

  • Zoëga, Geir T. (1910) “get”, in A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press; also available at the Internet Archive

Old Swedish

Alternative forms

  • ᚵᚽᛏ

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ʝeːt/

Noun

gēt f

  1. goat

Declension

Declension of gēt (consonant stem)
singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative gēt gētin gēter gētrina(r), -rena(r)
accusative gēt gētina, -ena gēter gētrina(r), -rena(r)
dative gēt gētinni, -inne gētum, -om gētumin, -omen
genitive gēta(r) inna(r) gēta gētanna

Descendants

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

Declension of get
singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative-accusative get getul geti getii
genitive-dative get getului geti getilor
vocative getule getilor

Swedish

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

  • Audio:(file)
  • IPA(key): /jeːt/

Noun

get c

  1. goat

Declension

Declension of get
nominative genitive
singular indefinite get gets
definite geten getens
plural indefinite getter getters
definite getterna getternas

Derived terms

References

Anagrams

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
    • 1867, “BIT OF DIALOGUE”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, page 111:
      Caulès will na get to wullaw to-die.
      Horses will not get to wallow to-day.

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
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