goat

name

1. The constellation and zodiacal sign Capricornus.

   “The Balance shows redemption’s need; The Scorpion wounds He must endure; The Archer tells His coming sure; The Goat, His death in sacrifice[.]”

   “Now, if you went down into the forest where the spring gum-tips gleam gold and ruby in whatever sunshine, Heaven thinks fit to apportion at this season to residents of the Dandenongs (who surely were all born Aquarians) what sign of the Zodiac would you expect to meet? Not Leo the Lion or Capricornus the Goat, though the Italians keep a few Capricorns for cheeses but chain them up. The goats I mean.”

2. The eighth of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar.

noun

1. Alternative form of gote (“sluice, waterway”).

   “... the present new Sluice or Goat (as they call it) at the end of Hamorebeck, at its fall into Boston Haven, taking up the foundation of the old Goat, they met with the roots of Trees, many of them issuing from their several[…]”

   “[...] the Trent floods, which override the sluices and goats, and which operate at present as a bar to the improvement of the drainage of the commons; and lately, by authority of parliament, a canal has been made in a similar way[…]”

verb

Etymology: From Middle English goot, got, gat, from Old English gāt, from Proto-West Germanic *gait, from Proto-Germanic *gaits, from a substrate language. The sense of lecherous man derives from the slang expression "horny as a goat".

1. To allow goats to feed on.

   “Rape and clover has yielded 283 sheep days of pasture, practically dry weather […] For the coming year it is planned to goat this area continuously”

2. To scapegoat.

   “John Rocker, meanwhile, was spared from getting goated because he didn't blow a save”

3. To isolate (an opposing blocker) behind one's own blockers, so as to slow down the pack.