Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • interjection Used to express anger, surprise, or indignation.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • An exclamation formerly used as an oath or as an expression of anger or wonder.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • interjection An exclamation formerly used as an oath, and an expression of anger or wonder.

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

  • interjection Expressing anger, surprise, assertion etc.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Shortening and alteration of God's wounds!.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Abbreviation of God's wounds, with reference to Christ's wounds before the crucifixion. Compare strewth, blimey, gadzooks, 'sblood.

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Examples

Comments

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  • God's wounds!

    February 14, 2007

  • Compare crikey ("Christ kill me") and blimey ("God blind me"). I forgot about this one tho.

    July 19, 2007

  • And how about bloody (thought to have come from "by Our Lady")?

    July 19, 2007

  • Compare Oons (also God's wounds)

    October 11, 2007

  • "I had noticed a strange apparition there and hoped to see it again--a tall woman sitting alone, dressed in what I took to be the height of fashion. One day she reappeared. She wore a hat resembling a nest on which an exotic bird was resting, and an elaborate dress of what I think used to be called 'changeable satin,' blues and greens of a peacock's feathers intermingling. Before eating it was necessary that she remove her gloves and raise her veil with gestures of apparently uncalculated grace. Zounds! What was this?"

    --Theophilus North by Thornton Wilder

    September 4, 2010

  • sky.....

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    January 15, 2012