Gateshead

English

Etymology

From Middle English Gatesheved (c. 1190), from Old English *Gāteshēafod, first mentioned by Bede in Latin in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People as ad caput caprae (at the goat's head), meaning a headland or hill frequented by (wild) goats. Both Latin and English names may be calques of a Brythonic predecessor formed from Proto-Brythonic *gaβr, from Proto-Celtic *gabros, and might have been the Romano-British fort of Gabrosentum.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡeɪtsˌhɛd/

Proper noun

Gateshead

1. A town in Tyne and Wear, in north-east England, found upon the southern bank of the Tyne (OS grid ref NZ2562).
   • 1830, John Yelloly, Sequel to a Paper on the Tendency to Calculous Diseases, and on the Concretions to Which Such Diseases Give Rise, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 120

     Of this number, 64 belonged to the above district, including Newcastle, with the addition of Gateshead, which lies on the opposite bank of the Tyne, in the county of Durham; and these afforded 2.13 cases per annum, which, as the population was 213,000, gave one case for every 100,000 inhabitants.

2. A metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear formed in 1974, with its headquarters in the town.
3. A suburb of Newcastle, in the City of Lake Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia, named after the town in England.

Translations

town in the county of Tyne and Wear

• Greek: Γκέητσχεντ (Gkéitschent)

See also

• Gatehead

Anagrams

• gets ahead, headgates, headstage, stagehead