gotham
/ˈɡɒθəm/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.52 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
Nickname for New York City: a major city in New York, United States.
name
A village and civil parish in Rushcliffe borough, Nottinghamshire, England, associated in folklore with insanity (OS grid ref SK5330).
Example Sentences
- "This passage of the erudite Linkum was applied to the city of Gotham, of which he was once Lord Mayor, as appears by his picture hung up in the hall of that ancient city;—but his observation fits this best of all possible cities "to a hair." It is a melancholy truth that this same New-York, though the most charming, pleasant, polished, and praise-worthy city under the sun, and in a word the bonne bouche of the universe, is most shockingly ill-natured, and sarcastic, and wickedly given to all manner of backslidings; for which we are very sorry, indeed."
- "Naturally sweetened desserts—delicious ones—have several hiding places in Gotham, and the Upper East Side's Candle Café is among the best."
Etymology
“Homestead where goats are kept”, from Old English gāt (“goat”) + hām (“home”). * (New York City nickname): First used 1807 by Washington Irving in his Salmagundi Papers: see the quotation. The original pronunciation had /th/ with later loss of /h/. The pronunciation with /θ/ is a spelling pronunciation that arose from a misreading of th as a digraph.
Origin
- Source language: Old English
Word Breakdown
- Root: -