Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Relationship by baptismal rites; spiritual affinity; sponsorship.
  • noun Idle talk; gossip.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Relationship by baptismal rites; spiritual affinity or parentage; sponsorship.
  • noun Idle talk; gossip.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English gossiprede, gossybrede, godsibrede, from Old English gōdsibbrǣden ("sponsorial obligations"), equivalent to gossip +‎ -red.

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Examples

  • Proudfute, having been active in spreading these reports, as indeed his element lay in such gossipred, some words passed betwixt him and me on the subject; and, as I think, he left me with the purpose of visiting Henry

    The Fair Maid of Perth 2008

  • Having for allies many of the northern Irish, whose chieftain, O'Neill, invited him to be King over the Gael in Ireland, and whose neighbourhood to the Scottish coast made them regard his followers as their fellow-countrymen, he courted them on all occasions, and thus the Irish customs of gossipred and fostering -- preferring the Brehon laws to statute law, whether enacted at

    An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 Mary Frances Cusack 1864

  • This statute enacts (1) that any alliance with the Irish by marriage, nurture of infants, or gossipred [standing sponsors], should be punishable as high treason; (2) that any man of English race taking an

    An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 Mary Frances Cusack 1864

  • The English Earl knew he could only obtain possession by treachery; he therefore leagued with Roe O'Brien, "so that they entered into gossipred with each other, and took vows by bells and relics to retain mutual friendship;" or, as the Annals of Clonmacnois have it,

    An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 Mary Frances Cusack 1864

  • It seems that his mother was a good-looking, laughing, buxom mistress of an inn between Stratford and London, at which Will Shakspeare often quartered as he went down to his native town; and that out of friendship and gossipred, as we say in Scotland, Will Shakspeare became godfather to Will

    Woodstock 1855

  • Among other things the statute enacted that "the alliaunce of the English by marriage with any Irish, the nurture of infantes, and gossipred with the Irish, be deemed high treason."

    Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc Various 1852

  • Special, short-lived alliances between lords of different Provinces are indeed frequent; but they were brought about mostly by ties of relationship or gossipred, and dissolved with the disappearance of the immediate danger.

    A Popular History of Ireland : from the Earliest Period to the Emancipation of the Catholics — Complete Thomas D'Arcy McGee 1846

  • Special, short-lived alliances between lords of different Provinces are indeed frequent; but they were brought about mostly by ties of relationship or gossipred, and dissolved with the disappearance of the immediate danger.

    A Popular History of Ireland : from the Earliest Period to the Emancipation of the Catholics — Volume 1 Thomas D'Arcy McGee 1846

  • Out of this reason; -- in the middle ages it was the prevailing belief (and the Romish Church still affirms it), that those who stood as sponsors to the same child, besides contracting spiritual obligations on behalf of that child, also contracted spiritual affinity one with another; they became _sib_, or akin, in _God_; and thus ‘gossips’; hence ‘gossipred’, an old word, exactly analogous to

    English Past and Present Richard Chenevix Trench 1846

  • Stratford and London, at which Will Shakspeare often quartered as he went down to his native town; and that out of friendship and gossipred, as we say in Scotland, Will Shakspeare became godfather to Will

    Woodstock; or, the Cavalier Walter Scott 1801

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