What does lucy goosey mean

See the full definition for loosey-goosey in the English Language Learners Dictionary. Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for loosey-goosey. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free! Log in Sign Up. Save Word. Definition of loosey-goosey. First Known Use of loosey-goosey , in the meaning defined above.

Learn More About loosey-goosey. Share loosey-goosey Post the Definition of loosey-goosey to Facebook Share the Definition of loosey-goosey on Twitter. Time Traveler for loosey-goosey The first known use of loosey-goosey was in See more words from the same year.

Actually it was a book from called The Frank C. Beliefs and customs. But still, The oldest reference to loosey-goosey I could find was from , but then I discovered that Goose Loose and Goosey Loosey go back much, much farther. Most of the characters in that folk tale had names that rhymed.

In one of the earliest English tellings, The Remarkable Story of Chicken Little by John Greene Chandler in , the character was Goose-Loose, and then later they all got their -ey endings, and Goose-Loose became Goosey-Loosey, but in some cases Goosey-Poosey, hinting that the rhyming was more important than the meaning.

Chandler was clearly translating an earlier folk tale published in Danish, and perhaps Southey knew of the Danish source too. But the idea of enforcing laws according to whether you like them or not seems a little loosey-goosey.

He skirted the place with a quick goosey hop, stumbled a little and felt panic, but made it all right to the office. So he went quite close and looked, and he saw that Grandfather Goosey-Gander's right leg was held in between two sticks. That is, of course, all but Grandfather Goosey-Gander, and he couldn't swim for he was held fast.