gosu

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Korean 고수(高手) (gosu), literally "high hand". In English, the term is often used as an adjective in contrast to the original use as a noun.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡoʊsuː/

Noun

gosu (plural gosus) (video games)

1. (rare) A person of great skill; master; expert.
   • 2000 March 12, Yasser Jadidi, “Win money with SC, someone does”, in alt.games.starcraft‎^[1] (Usenet):

     of course it is possible to become that good, but have u ever played a gosu? thats really krass. i would not say he is the best. there r many as good as him and it will become more n more difficult to become a good starcraft player.

   • 2002 February 25, )(av.-.)3onl), “How common are hackers on B.net?”, in alt.games.starcraft‎^[2] (Usenet):

     it's not too late to start playing it and become a gosu before your friends.

   • 2002 April 22, )(av.-.)3onl), “This guy is trying to steal my mates wife. 2040”, in alt.games.starcraft‎^[3] (Usenet):

     I need 50 000 Euros for that project, if one of the gosus here made enough bucks with bw to gimme some, reply to sender :o)

   • 2002 May 20, Xav)3onl), “best stratagy to defeat protoss??”, in alt.games.starcraft‎^[4] (Usenet):

     the guy you play is a gosu and like you so he let you play and have fuin^[sic] before killing you, but you're damn too slow

   • 2002 July 1, )(av)3onl), “June stats”, in alt.games.starcraft‎^[5] (Usenet):

     But I've never considered myself as a gosu out of my LAN, where I r0x each and every n00b friends I have.

   • 2003 March 20, Clark Kent, “Just won with hide the farm....”, in alt.games.warcraft‎^[6] (Usenet):

     I am not trying to make a fanclub or fame for myself. Some gosus seem to play solely for these purposes, I, you see, get kicks from pissing them off.

   • 2004 August 23, assaarpa, “How be noob in RT”, in alt.games.warcraft‎^[7] (Usenet):

     But that bliss came to an end, I really enjoyed playing that way mostly because it did piss so many "wanna-be-gosus".

   • 2010, Manuel Schenkhuizen, “Grubby - My First Tournament”, in Julia Christophers, Tobias Scholz, editors, eSports Yearbook 2009, Norderstedt: Books on Demand, →ISBN, page 115:

     I was playing alongside gosu‘s like KaJ, Zeus, Kiko and the successful FuRy/LaWn 2v2 team.

   (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)

Adjective

gosu (video games)

1. (rare) Exceptional in skill; elite.
   • 2002 January 30, Steven Ung, “[OT] Macintosh vs. Windows”, in alt.games.starcraft‎^[8] (Usenet):

     Like I said, winning against a newbie doesn't makes^[sic] you gosu.

   • 2002 February 27, Steven Ung, “WarCraft III Beta”, in alt.games.starcraft‎^[9] (Usenet):

     Yeah, you're too gosu for me, be it WarCraft or StarCraft. Me = Nuubie.

   • 2002 April 17, Majin Kai, “Is there any way to get past the 200 units limit?”, in alt.games.starcraft‎^[10] (Usenet):

     Alternatively you can hold down F4 for the entire game with your vestigial human tailbone and the same thing will occur. This is much harder to do because the vestigial human tailbone isn't very long and humans haven't needed it in, oh, seven million years. The most gosu players can do this while playing a 1v7c game, having cybersex with six girls on AIM, *and* getting it on with their two girlfriends in realtime while playing pingpong against the entire Chinese pingpong team.

   • 2002 April 18, Majin Kai, “Is there any way to get past the 200 units limit?”, in alt.games.starcraft‎^[11] (Usenet):

     It's comparable to a bunch of gosu Korean players beating you into the ground in two minutes with an SCV rush.

   • 2004 August 23, assaarpa, “How be noob in RT”, in alt.games.warcraft‎^[12] (Usenet):

     Towers were "too strong" at first, gosu players whined about n00bs who built them.

Usage notes

• Mainly used among players of the video game StarCraft.

Coordinate terms

• hasu
• chobo

Further reading

• gosu on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Guos, usog

Norwegian Nynorsk

Noun

gòsu f (definite singular gòso, indefinite plural gòsur, definite plural gòsune)

1. (pre-1917) alternative form of gose

Pali

Alternative forms

Alternative scripts

• 𑀕𑁄𑀲𑀼 (Brahmi script)
• गोसु (Devanagari script)
• গোসু (Bengali script)
• ගොසු (Sinhalese script)
• ဂေါသု or ၷေႃသု (Burmese script)
• โคสุ (Thai script)
• ᨣᩮᩤᩈᩩ (Tai Tham script)
• ໂຄສຸ (Lao script)
• គោសុ (Khmer script)
• 𑄉𑄮𑄥𑄪 (Chakma script)

Noun

gosu

1. locative plural of go (“cow, ox, bull”)