Meanings
comparative more geason · superlative most geason · alternative geazon · alternative gaison · alternative gessen
- dialectalrareRare; uncommon; scarce.
Such as this Age, in which all good is geason, […]
1591, Edmund Spenser, Visions of the Worlds Vanitie3 more examples
This white falcon rare and gaison, This bird shineth so bright.
16th century, Nicholas Udall, Falcon White[…] ye shal finde many other word to rime with him, bycause such terminations are not geazon […]
1588, George Puttenham, “Of Proportion”, in The Arte of English Poesie; republished as George Gregory Smith, editor, Elizabethan Critical Essays, volume 2, Oxford University Press, 1937, page 119Lectorius, friends are geason now-a-days, / And grow to fume before they taste the fire.
1594, Thomas Lodge, The Wounds of Civil War, act 2; republished as John Payne Collier, Robert Dodsley, Isaac Reed, editors, A Select Collection of Old Plays, volume 8, London: Septimus Prowett, 1825, page 32Synonyms: infrequent
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectiveRare; uncommon; scarce.
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*ǵʰeh₂-“to be gaping, yawn”
- Proto-West Germanic*gaisnī“barren, poor”
- Old Englishgǣsne“deprived of, wanting, destitute, barren, sterile, dead”
- Middle Englishgeson
- Englishgeason
From Middle English geson, gesene (“rare, scarce”), from Old English gǣsne (“deprived of, wanting, destitute, barren, sterile, dead”), from Proto-West Germanic *gaisnī (“barren, poor”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰeh₂- (“to be gaping, yawn”). Cognate with Old High German geisini, keisini (“lack”), a noun, and more remotely with North Frisian gast (“barren”), Low German güst (“barren”).
More words from Middle English, Old English, Proto-West Germanic
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
geason. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/geason
“geason.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/geason. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “geason,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/geason.
Source: geason on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.