Wiktionary

godsend

English

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WOTD – 19 August 2023

Etymology

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A variant of God’s send, from God +‎ ’s +‎ send (“(obsolete) act of sending”),[1] in the sense of someone or something sent by God.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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godsend (plural godsends)

  1. An instance of unexpected benefit or good fortune; a windfall.
    • 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “A Discovery”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 207:
      "You do, indeed, seem to take it to heart!" exclaimed the actress, an expression of jealous anger crossing her features; "why, it is quite a God-send for you! many a heart is caught in the rebound. […]"
    • 1843 November, Thomas De Quincey, “Ceylon”, in Speculations Literary and Philosophic: With German Tales and Other Narrative Papers (De Quincey’s Works; XII), London: James Hogg & Sons, →OCLC, page 27:
      [O]nce again, as in 1803, we were on the brink of being sacrificed to the very lunacies of retrenchment. By a mere god-send, more troops happened to arrive from the Indian continent.
    • 1938 April, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter VI, in Homage to Catalonia, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC, page 80:
      By this time my wife was in Barcelona and used to send me tea, chocolate, and even cigars when such things were procurable; but even in Barcelona everything was running short, especially tobacco. The tea was a godsend, though we had no milk and seldom any sugar.
    • 1949 November–December, O[swald] S[tevens] Nock, “Twenty-Four Hours at York—2”, in The Railway Magazine, London: Tothill Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, pages 357–358:
      To the onlooker, and particularly to those whose memories go back to pre-grouping days, the modern cavalcade of "V2s" and "B1s" is apt to become a little monotonous; but to any running man the general utility characteristics of these two classes are a perfect godsend at times of exceptional pressure, when it is often a case of "first in—first out" with locomotive allocations at sheds.
    1. (specifically, British, regional, archaic) The wreck of a ship which has washed up on shore, from which cargo, timber, etc., may be obtained.
  2. A person who provides greatly needed assistance.

Alternative forms

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Translations

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ “godsend, n.”, in OED Online  ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “godsend, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

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Anagrams

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