Old English · verb
gan
Normalised gān
- Part of speech
- verb
- IPA
- /ɡɑːn/
- Syllables
- ɡɑːn (1 syllable)
- Modern English
- gogan
Meaning
-
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.
-
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" -
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
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