ござる

Japanese

Verb

ござる (irregular conjugation, kanji 御座る, romaji gozaru)

1. (archaic) to exist, to be, to have

   In classical Japanese ござる (gozaru) was the polite form of ある (aru), but applicable both to animate and to inanimate objects. It survives in modern Japanese only in the inflected forms ございました (gozaimashita), ございましたら (gozaimashitara), ございます (gozaimasu), and です (desu), originally a contraction of でございます (de gozaimasu).