Goodyship

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The state or quality of a goody or goodwife. dated, humorous, rare, uncountable

    "1663-78, Samuel Butler, Hudibras: In Three Parts. Written in the Time of the Late Wars. Edinburgh: Printed for R. Clark, P. Anderson, & A. Brown, 1784. Part I, Canto 3, lines 517–518. http://books.google.ca/books?id=2yxXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=hudibras+goodyship&source=bl&ots=XLZNd1nh60&sig=lbQogZQyzBtwDNRnSQJZXvOo_f4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=lO_fUcq8AaHFywGo3oDoBA&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=goodyship&f=false The more shame for her goodyship, / To give so near a friend the slip."

Example

More examples

"1663-78, Samuel Butler, Hudibras: In Three Parts. Written in the Time of the Late Wars. Edinburgh: Printed for R. Clark, P. Anderson, & A. Brown, 1784. Part I, Canto 3, lines 517–518. http://books.google.ca/books?id=2yxXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=hudibras+goodyship&source=bl&ots=XLZNd1nh60&sig=lbQogZQyzBtwDNRnSQJZXvOo_f4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=lO_fUcq8AaHFywGo3oDoBA&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=goodyship&f=false The more shame for her goodyship, / To give so near a friend the slip."

Etymology

From goody + -ship.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.