gooden

present singular third person goodens · participle present goodening · participle past goodened · past goodened

1. transitiveTo make good; improve; better; perfect.

   The passive voice is all-pervasive. This is a world in which virtue is achieved by not doing things, only thus, like Jesus (Wright tells us) may we “be Goodened with Good.

   2010, Richard Francis, Fruitlands: The Alcott Family and Their Search for Utopia

   1 more example

   For many years we have endeavored to comprehend how a/b could transform highly intelligent and in many respects 'model' girls and women (and sometimes boys and men) into unwitting bystanders and accomplices to their own torture and impending death while remaining convinced that they are being perfected and goodened?

   2009, Helen Malson, Maree Burns, Critical Feminist Approaches to Eating Dis/Orders

2. intransitiveTo become good.
3. UKdialectalintransitiveTo grow; improve; prosper.

present singular third person goodens · participle present goodening · participle past goodened · past goodened

1. dialectalintransitiveTo perambulate, usually town to town, collecting alms, gifts, or small gratuities before Christmas-time, usually on St. Thomas's Day.

   In 1899 the oldest dame who took part in the ceremony was aged ninety-three, while in 1904 a widow "goodened" for the thirtieth year in succession.

   1910, Peter Hampson Ditchfield, Vanishing England: the book

   1 more example

   Phoebe, in support of a good old Sussex custom, regularly, on St. Thomas's Day, December 21st, went out "Goodening," visiting well-to-do parishioners, to gossip upon the past, over hot elderberry wine and plum cake, and to receive doles, either in money or materials, [...]

   1871, Henry Martin, The history of Brighton and environs

   Synonyms: mump

plural Goodens

1. A surname.