eldertongue

Old English · verb

gan

Normalised gān

Part of speech
verb
IPA
/ɡɑːn/
Syllables
ɡɑːn (1 syllable)
Modern English
gogan

Meaning

  1. to go

    c. 990, Wessex Gospels, "Gospel of Saint John", chapter 21, verse 3

    Then said Simon Peter to them, "I want to go fishing." Then they said to him, "and we want to go with you." And they went out and went in a ship, and caught nothing in the night.

  2. to walk

    ...and hē lēop sona cunniġende his fēðes hwæðer hē cūðe gān.

    and he leapt up immediately, trying his power of motion, whether he could walk.

    late 10th century, Ælfric, "Chair of Saint Peter"
  3. to enter

    c. 990, Wessex Gospels, Matthew 24:38-39

    In the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they didn't know until the flood came and took them all.

Conjugation

Conjugation of gan
PresentPast
Indicative
1st singular gāēode
2nd singular gǣstēodest
3rd singular gǣþēode
Plural gāþēodon
Subjunctive
Singular gāēode
Plural gānēoden
Non-finite forms of gan
Form
Infinitive gān
Inflected infinitive gānne
Imperative singular gā
Imperative plural gāþ
Present participle gānde
Past participle gānġegān

All forms (12)

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *gān, from Proto-Germanic *gāną, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰeh₁- (“to leave”). The verb was defective in Germanic and may have existed only in the present tense.

Descendants

gan, go

Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gan · CC BY-SA 4.0 licence · Attribution