gaga

Etymology

It is borrowed from French gaga (“senile; a senile person, an old fool”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} which most dictionaries call imitative in origin.^[4][5][6][7] Barnhart takes it as imitating the mumbling of a person sunk into dotage,^[3] and Etymonline as imitating meaningless babbling.^[8] The Oxford Dictionary of English instead explains the French word as a reduplication based on gâteux, a variant of gâteur, which in hospital slang meant a bed-wetter.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Senile, doddering: in 1910, in W. S. Blunt's diary, of a new Sultan whom a visitor had found "uninteresting; indeed gaga".^[11]

Semantic evolution

In 1917 an English newspaper, the Evening Despatch, introduced gaga as a bit of French slang recently imported, with no equivalent in English;^[8] Etymonline and Merriam-Webster date the word to that year,^[8][5] while the OED and Barnhart first find it in a letter of Ford Madox Ford of 1920, in the senses doting, senile, mad, "dotty" or fatuous, and also as an adverb.^[2][3] The noun, a senile person or a madman, follows in 1938, in S. Beckett's Murphy.^[2][11] From senility and madness the adjective spread to the milder sense of being foolishly or wildly enthusiastic, especially in go gaga over someone or something, a sense the newer dictionaries record.^[4][12][13] In American slang a verb gaga, to act sentimentally, is recorded in 1931, and in American gay slang of the 1940s a gaga was an inexperienced young homosexual.^[11]

Timeline

• 1910 – senile, in W. S. Blunt's diary.^[11]
• 1917 – described as recently imported French slang.^[8][5]
• 1920 – doting, senile; mad, fatuous; first OED record, in a letter of Ford Madox Ford.^[2][3]
• 1931 – American slang verb, to act sentimentally.^[11]
• 1938 – noun, a senile person or a madman.^[2][11]
• 1941 – American gay slang, an inexperienced young homosexual.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Confused or senile, especially through old age.^[6][9][4]
2. Foolish or slightly crazy; silly.^[4][6][5]
3. Wildly enthusiastic or infatuated, usually with over or about: The whole town went gaga over the new footballer.^[4][12][13]

Noun

1. (slang) A senile or foolish person.^[2][14][11]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
12. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ a b The Chambers Dictionary (2008), 11th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap
14. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press