gopher

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain.^[2][3][4] One explanation takes it as borrowed from French gaufre (“honeycomb, waffle”), said to have been used by the French settlers of Louisiana for various burrowing animals, whose burrows honeycomb the ground;^[5][2][6] the Shorter Oxford and Word Origins name Canadian French instead.^[3][7] The OED gives this only as "said to be" the source, on the authority of Webster's dictionary of 1848–64.^[6] The French word goes back to Old French gaufre, also walfre, recorded from the 12th century and taken from Frankish or another Germanic source;^[5] Barnhart compares Middle Dutch wafel (“honeycomb”).^[2] It is the source of English goffer and is related to waffle.^[8][7][6] The other explanation, given by Merriam-Webster, Collins and Dictionary.com, takes gopher as short for earlier megopher or magopher, the gopher tortoise, of unknown origin;^[9][10][11] the American Heritage Dictionary thinks it probably of Muskogean origin and compares Choctaw kofussa (“a hollow, an excavation”).^[12] Dictionary.com adds that the spelling copies that of “gopher wood”.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A burrowing land tortoise of the southern United States: 1791, in W. Bartram's Travels through North and South Carolina.^[6][9]

Semantic evolution

The name passed to the pocket gopher, a burrowing rodent, recorded from 1814 in H. M. Brackenridge's Views of Louisiana;^[6][2] Etymonline dates this sense to 1812.^[5] It was given to a large burrowing snake from 1837 and to the ground squirrels from 1874.^[6] Because the animals were common there, the word became a nickname for people from Arkansas (1845), Florida (1865 in Green's Dictionary of Slang, 1869 in the OED) and Minnesota (1866), which was called the Gopher State;^[6][13][5] in US slang it was also an insult for a stupid person (1865).^[13] In the American West it meant small-scale mining: a gopher-drift from 1881,^[6] and the verb, to mine haphazardly, from the Century Dictionary of 1889,^[14] after the verb "to burrow" of 1893.^[6] In New York underworld slang a gopher was a member of a Hell's Kitchen gang that hid in cellars, and later any thug (1915), and also a safe (1871).^[13] In 1991 Gopher became the name of an Internet protocol for finding documents, after the gopher mascot of the University of Minnesota, where it was developed.^[6][15]

Timeline

• 1791 – a burrowing land tortoise of the southern United States.^[6][9]
• 1814 – a pocket gopher, a burrowing rodent.^[6][2] Etymonline gives 1812.^[5]
• 1837 – a large burrowing snake.^[6]
• 1845 – a native of Arkansas, later of Minnesota and Florida.^[6][13]
• 1871 – in underworld slang, a safe.^[13]
• 1874 – a ground squirrel.^[6]
• 1889 – verb, to mine haphazardly or on a small scale.^[14][6]
• 1893 – verb, to burrow like a gopher.^[6]
• 1915 – a thief or gangster.^[13]
• 1991 – an Internet protocol for retrieving documents.^[6][15]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of the burrowing rodents of North and Central America with large cheek pouches; a pocket gopher: Gophers had dug up half the lawn.^[10][9][6]
2. A ground squirrel.^[10][6]
3. A gopher tortoise, a burrowing land tortoise of the southeastern United States.^[10][9][6]
4. A bull snake or other burrowing snake.^[10][6]
5. A native of Minnesota, or formerly of Arkansas or Florida.^[6][13]
6. (computing) An early Internet system for finding and retrieving documents.^[6][15]

Verb

1. To mine in a haphazard way or on a small scale.^{[9][6][14][3]}
2. To burrow like a gopher.^[6][3]

Word family

• gopher ball
• gopher plant
• gopher snake
• striped gopher

Related words

• goffer
• waffle
• gofer

Usage notes

The gopher wood of which Noah built the ark (Genesis 6:14 in the King James Bible of 1611) is an unrelated word, from the Hebrew name of an unidentified tree.^{[6][5][4][16][17]} Merriam-Webster files it under “gopher wood”.^[9] Gopher is also a spelling of gofer, an errand runner.^[18][11]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ a b c d e f g Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
14. ^ a b c Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
15. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
16. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
17. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
18. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster