goose bumps or goose pimples: see gooseflesh.

goose, common name for large wild and domesticated swimming birds related to the duck and the swan. Strictly speaking, the term goose is applied to the female and gander to the male. In North America the wild (or Canada) goose, Branta canadensis, is known by its honking call and by the migrating V-shaped flocks in spring and fall. Other wild geese are the brant (any species of the genus Branta, particularly B. bernicla) and the blue, snow, and white-fronted (or laughing) geese. Among the domestic geese are the popular Toulouse (or gray) goose (descended from the graylag, Anser anser, of Europe), the African goose, the Embden goose, and the Asian breeds (developed from the wild Chinese goose). Geese were raised in ancient times by the Romans and other Europeans and were sacred in Egypt 4,000 years ago. Forcible feeding is used to fatten geese and to enlarge the liver for use in making pâté de foie gras. Geese are classifed in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Aves, order Anseriformes, family Anatidae.

Van Schaick, Goose, 1736-89, American Revolutionary soldier, b. Albany, N.Y. He fought in the French and Indian War, becoming (1760) lieutenant colonel of a New York regiment. As a colonel in the Revolution, he led (1779) a successful expedition against the Onondaga. Gen. James Clinton placed him in command of forces completing the Sullivan-Clinton campaign against the Native Americans in the Mohawk valley. He was brevetted brigadier general in 1783.

Mother Goose, name associated with nursery rhymes. Most English nursery rhymes have been ascribed to Mother Goose. The origin of the name is still a matter of dispute. Some trace it to a French collection of tales by Charles Perrault (1697) that had the subtitle Contes de ma mère L'Oye [tales of mother goose]. This name has in turn been traced to Queen Goosefoot, Charlemagne's mother (see Bertrada), who was a patron of children. Others claim an American origin in Mother Goose's Melodies, published 1719 in Boston by Thomas Fleet, whose mother-in-law was said to be Elizabeth Vergoose. A collection of Mother Goose rhymes was published by John Newbery in London in 1765. The subject matter of the rhymes has been linked by some scholars to actual events in English political history.

Most common Eurasian representative (Anser anser) of the so-called gray goose, and ancestor of all Occidental domestic geese. It nests in temperate regions and winters from Britain to North Africa, India, and China. It is pale gray with pink legs; the bill is pink in the eastern race and orange in the western race.

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Any of various large, heavy-bodied waterfowl (family Anatidae), especially those of the genera Anser (so-called gray geese) and Branta (so-called black geese), which are found only in the Northern Hemisphere. Intermediate in size and build between ducks and swans, geese are less fully aquatic than either, and their legs are farther forward, allowing them to walk readily. Geese have a specially modified bill for grasping sedges and grasses, their main diet. The sexes are alike in coloration; males (called ganders) are usually larger than females. Both sexes utter loud honking or gabbling cries while in flight or when danger appears. Geese pair for life. Flocks traveling in V-formations migrate between their northern breeding grounds and southern wintering grounds. Seealso barnacle goose; Canada goose; greylag; nene.

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Species (Branta leucopsis) of waterbird that resembles a small Canada goose, with dark back, white face, and black neck and bib. It winters in the northern British Isles and on the coasts of Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. In the Middle Ages, it was thought to hatch from barnacles, and thus was considered “fish” and could be eaten on Fridays.

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Fictitious old woman, reputedly the source of the body of traditional children's songs and verses known as nursery rhymes. Often pictured as a beak-nosed, sharp-chinned old woman riding on the back of a flying gander, she was first associated with nursery rhymes in Mother Goose's Melody (1781), published by the successors of John Newbery. The name apparently derived from the h1 of Charles Perrault's collection of fairy tales Ma Mère l'oye (1697; “My Mother Goose”). The persistent rumour that Mother Goose was an actual Boston woman is false.

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