ghit

English

WOTD – 4 September 2017

Etymology

A contraction of Google hit; coined on 3 February 2004 by “Trevor” on his blog k’ɑləbøl: see the quotations from him and from American linguist Mark Liberman on his Language Log blog (9 February 2004), below.

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɪt/, /ˈd͡ʒiːˌhɪt/
- Audio (Southern England): (file)
- Audio (Southern England): (file)
Rhymes: -ɪt (one pronunciation)
Homophone: git (one pronunciation)

Noun

ghit (plural ghits)

(Internet) Contraction of Google hit: a hit obtained using the search engine Google. [from 2004.]
Hyponym: googlewhack
- 2004 February 3, “Trevor”, “Shame”, in k’ɑləbøl‎^[1], archived from the original on 22 September 2015:
  Igry (1/2/3) – a (research-driven?) neologism expressing a voyeuristic, laissez-faire sense of shame – already gets slightly more ghits (ca 200 to 175, once you've sifted out the Russians) than its Catalan equivalent, vergonya aliena, although it's still way behind plaatsvervangende schaamte and vergüenza ajena (not to mention verguenza ajena).
- 2004 February 9, Mark Liberman, “Igry and Ghits”, in Language Log‎^[2], archived from the original on 3 July 2016:
  For me, though, the most important thing in his post is the neologism ghits. Now there's a word that fills a need! I don't know if this is Trevor's coinage, but it seems to be pretty new: "ghits" has 2380 ghits, at the moment, but all the 50 or so that I checked were programming language variable names, words in languages other than English, alternative spellings of "gits", or jokes like "ghits and siggles". Anyhow, I'm in Trevor's debt for the tip, and if he's the author, he deserves immortal renown. […] Update: it seems that Trevor is the responsible party. He's posted that / I am having 1,500 cards printed with "ghit = google hit © 2004 followthebaldie.com" and am going to flog them down the Ramblas this lunchtime. I am unsure as to whether this constitutes a business plan.
- 2004 August 8, Mark Liberman, “Superfluity and Uselessness”, in Language Log‎^[3], archived from the original on 1 October 2016:
  "Fifth wheel" is a common expression for superfluity, common in frames like "feel like a fifth wheel" (538 ghits), but it's not so commonly used in the frame "ADJ as a ___".
- 2004 October 22, “David”, “Searching Sue de Nimes”, in TEFL Smiler: A British EFL Teacher Comments on His Life and Applied Linguistics‎^[4], archived from the original on 2 March 2006:
  I'm quite baffled, in fact, that there are so few ghits (Google hits) for this search, as the idea seems so obvious. Even if you spell it without the final 's', you end up with only one extra ghit.

Translations

ghit (contraction of “Google hit”)

German: Google-Hit m, Google-Treffer m

Anagrams

gith, ight, thig