get

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

get

Wikipedia

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ɡɛt/

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• IPA^(key): (regionally restricted, less formal) /ɡɪt/
• 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 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.

4. (transitive) To fetch, bring, take.

   Can you get my bag from the living-room, please?

   I need to get this to the office.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Genesis 31:13:

     Get thee out from this land.

   • 1603, Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes, , London: Adam Islip, →OCLC, page 634:

     He […] got himself […] to the strong town of Mega.

5. (copulative) To become, or cause oneself to become.

   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.

6. (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.

   • 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.

7. (transitive) To cause to do.

   Somehow she got him to agree to it.

   I can't get it to work.

   • c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 268:

     Get him to say his prayers.

   • 1927, F. E. Penny, chapter 5, in Pulling the Strings:

     Anstruther laughed good-naturedly. “[…] I shall take out half a dozen intelligent maistries from our Press and get them to give our villagers instruction when they begin work and when they are in the fields.”

8. (transitive) To cause to come or go or move.

   I got him to his room.

   • 1881, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “Retro me, Sathana !”, in Ballads and Sonnets, →OCLC, page 252:

     Get thee behind me.

9. (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.

10. (transitive) To cover (a certain distance) while travelling.

    to get a mile

11. (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.

12. (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.

13. (transitive) To respond to (a telephone call, a doorbell, etc).

    Can you get that call, please? I'm busy.

14. (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.

15. (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.

16. (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.

17. (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, 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.

18. (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:

      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, 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:

      It was a terrible place to live. You get places like that. It is just the way it is.

19. (transitive) To become ill with or catch (a disease).

    I went on holiday and got malaria.

20. (transitive, informal) To catch out, trick successfully.

    He keeps calling pretending to be my boss—it gets me every time.

21. (transitive, informal) To perplex, stump.

    That question's really got me.

22. (transitive) To find as an answer.

    What did you get for question four?

23. (transitive, informal) To bring to reckoning; to catch (as a criminal); to effect retribution.

    The cops finally got me.

    I'm gonna get him for that.

24. (transitive) To hear completely; catch.

    Sorry, I didn't get that. Could you repeat it?

25. (transitive) To getter.

    I put the getter into the container to get the gases.

26. (now rare) To beget (of a father).
    • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 314:

      I had rather to adopt a child than get it.

    • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 4:

      Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself / Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!

    • 2009, Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, Fourth Estate, published 2010, page 310:

      Walter had said, dear God, Thomas, it was St fucking Felicity if I'm not mistaken, and her face was to the wall for sure the night I got you.

27. (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

28. (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 (lyrics and music), “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.

29. (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.

30. (euphemistic) To kill.

    They’re coming to get you, Barbara.

31. (intransitive, obsolete) To make acquisitions; to gain; to profit.
    • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 112:

      We mourn, France smiles; we lose, they daily get.

32. (transitive) To measure.

    Did you get her temperature?

33. (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 "He said they couldn't find the place because they'd got the wrong address".) 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. 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).
• "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:

Conjugation

Synonyms

• (obtain): acquire, come by, have
• (receive): receive, be given
• (fetch): bring, fetch, retrieve
• (become): become
• (cause to become): cause to be, cause to become, make
• (cause to do): make
• (arrive): arrive at, reach
• (go, leave): get out go, leave, scram
• (adopt or assume (a position or state)): go, move
• (begin): begin, commence, start
• (catch (a means of public transport)): catch, take
• (respond to (telephone, doorbell)): answer
• (be able to; have the opportunity to do): be able to
• (informal: understand): dig, follow, make sense of, understand
• (informal: be (used to form the passive)): be
• (informal: catch (a disease)): catch, come down with
• (informal: trick): con, deceive, dupe, hoodwink, trick
• (informal: perplex): confuse, perplex, stump
• (find as an answer): obtain
• (bring to reckoning; to catch (as a criminal)): catch, nab, nobble
• (physically assault): assault, beat, beat up
• (informal: hear): catch, hear
• (getter): getter

Antonyms

• (antonym(s) of "obtain"): lose

Derived terms

Related terms

• guess

Translations

Noun

get (plural gets)

1. (dated) Offspring.
   • 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 gained; 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. (British, 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

• gett
• ghet

References

Further reading

• “get”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “get”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• GTE, TGE, teg

Azerbaijani

Verb

get

1. second-person singular imperative of getmək

Chinese

Etymology

From English get.

Pronunciation

Verb

get

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) to understand, often used with "到"

   佢講嘅嘢太複雜，我get唔到佢咩意思。

   The stuff that he is 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 (Latin spelling)

1. divorce

Limburgish

Alternative forms

• jett (Krefeld)
• gätt, gädd (Eupen)

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

Alternative forms

• geet, gete, jet, gette, geete, jete, jeete

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dʒɛːt/, /dʒɛt/

Noun

get (uncountable)

2. jet, hardened coal
3. A bead made of jet.
4. A jet-black pigment.

Descendants

• English: jet

References

• “ǧē̆t, n.(2).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-24.

Old Norse

Etymology

From geta.

Noun

get n

1. (rare) a guess

Declension

Verb

get

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

References

• “get”, in Geir T. Zoëga (1910) A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press

Old Swedish

Alternative forms

• ᚵᚽᛏ

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʝeːt/

Noun

gēt f

1. goat

Declension

Descendants

• Swedish: get

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

Swedish

Swedish Wikipedia has an article on:

get

Wikipedia ^sv

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

References

• get in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• get in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• get in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

Anagrams

• teg

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 or got)

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