Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word gan. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word gan, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say gan in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word gan you have here. The definition of the word gan will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofgan, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
The one problem I had here was my broad Geordie accent which the teachers tried their hardest to make me lose. I couldn't understand their problem with it because I could understand myself. Whenever I told them, "Am gannin yem", they would say, "No, Christopher. It's not "am gannin yem", it's "I am going home".
References
Further reading
Frank Graham, editor (1987), “GAN”, in The New Geordie Dictionary, Rothbury, Northumberland: Butler Publishing, →ISBN.
Scott Dobson, Dick Irwin “gan”, in Newcastle 1970s: Durham & Tyneside Dialect Group, archived from the original on 2024-09-05.
Todd's Geordie Words and Phrases, George Todd, Newcastle, 1977
“Gan”, in Palgrave’s Word List: Durham & Tyneside Dialect Group, archived from the original on 2024-09-05, from F M T Palgrave, A List of Words and Phrases in Everyday Use by the Natives of Hetton-le-Hole in the County of Durham (Publications of the English Dialect Society; 74), London: Published for the English Dialect Society by Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press, 1896, →OCLC.
In standard written Irish, triggers lenition (except of d, s, t) of unmodified nouns, e.g. gan phingin(“without a penny”). Does not trigger lenition of modified nouns, e.g. gan pingin ina phóca(“without a penny in his pocket”). In the meaning ‘not’, does not trigger lenition of either a verbal noun or on the direct object of the verbal noun, e.g. gan ceannach(“not to buy”), gan pingin a shaothrú(“not to earn a penny”).
Unlike most prepositions, gan takes the nominative case of nouns, as shown by the lack of mutation of consonant-initial masculine singular nouns after the definite article, for example gan an plúr(“without the flour”), and the presence of t-prothesis of vowel-initial masculine singular nouns after the article, for example gan an t-airgead(“without the money”).
Unlike most prepositions, gan does not form prepositional pronouns, but is instead followed by the disjunctive form of a personal pronoun, for example gan mé(“without me”), gan sinn(“without us”), gan é(“without him”).
Quotations
1899, Franz Nikolaus Finck, Die araner mundart [The Aran Dialect], volume II (overall work in German), Marburg: Elwert’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, page 127:
ȷ imə šē leš gon ēn ńī ēkāl.
[D’imigh sé leis gan aon ní a fheiceáil.]
He left without seeing anything.
1899, Franz Nikolaus Finck, Die araner mundart [The Aran Dialect], volume II (overall work in German), Marburg: Elwert’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, page 127:
l̄aurofŭī n̥ ʒēlǵə fōs əŕ fȧ nə ciŕə, ʒā mĭøx gn̥ n̄āŕə ə ve orī fuhə.
[Labhrófaí an Ghaeilge fós ar feadh na tíre dhá mbeadh gan náire a bheith oraibh fúithi.]
Irish would still be spoken in the whole country if you pl were not ashamed of it.
1899, Franz Nikolaus Finck, Die araner mundart [The Aran Dialect], volume II (overall work in German), Marburg: Elwert’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, page 128:
Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.
In some dialects it's the animal equivalent of tê niyan(“to fuck; lit. "to put in, insert"”) or a meaner way of saying "fuck" by insinuating the person cursed at is an animal. That considered, the actual sense may have been "to breed" and derived from ga(“ox; bull; stud; any male cattle”).
In some dialects and derived terms it's used only for homosexual acts or prostitution.
Ðā cwæð Simon Petrus tō him, Ic wylle gān on fixað. Þā cwǣdon hī tō him, And wē wyllað gān mid þē. And hī ēodon ūt, and ēodon on scip, and ne fēngon nān þing on þǣre nihte.
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.
On þǣm dagum ǣr þǣm flōde wǣron menn etende and drincende, and wīfiġende and ġifte sellende, ōþ þone dæġ þe Nōe on þā earċe ēode, and hīe nysson ǣr sē flōd cōm and nam hīe ealle.
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.
Usage notes
The expected present participle, gānde, is very rare. Instead gangende is almost always used, from the synonym gangan: Līf nis būtan gangendu sċadu ("Life is but a walking shadow").
The ā-form was found especially in Alemannic and in western Franconian. In the former, the vocalism was regularized early on (du gās, er gāt); in the latter, the West Germanic vowel alternation (du geis, he geit) has been preserved even to this day.
Yakup, Abdurishid (2002) “gan”, in An Ili Salar Vocabulary: Introduction and a Provisional Salar-English Lexicon, Tokyo: University of Tokyo, →ISBN, page 104
^ R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “gan”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies