to goose step
3
8.9
- phrasal verb
- /ɡuːst stɛp/
- One hundred seventy-five thousand goose-stepping Italian troops arrived in Spain to aid Franco.
- goose step soldiers
- goose-stepping troops
Examples
-
Who better to teach us how to goose-step into the 21st century than Xuxa?
Academic text (1998) -
We're not going to wake up one morning and suddenly find ourselves in gray uniforms goose-stepping off to work...
Fiction book (1991) -
Resting her hands against her cool midriff, she spotted the car, swayed, and goose-stepped her way to it.
Fiction book (1997) -
He turned back toward the audience, which had started to applaud again, as the conductor almost goose-stepped from the wings.
Fiction book (1998) -
In Vietnam, today is called Liberation Day, and the government staged a parade down the former Reunification Boulevard that featured tank replicas and goose-stepping soldiers in white uniforms.
Blog text (27) -
The soldiers were ordered to goose step in perfect unison during the parade.
-
During the military review, the troops demonstrated their ability to goose step with precision.
-
As the band played, the cadets began to goose step down the street in formation.
Synonyms
1
7.3
Moving with the legs lifted high in a showy way
1
7.2
Moving with the feet lifted high off the ground
How Stiff
Surface Forms
Morphology
goose + step
The compound 'goose' + 'step' evokes a characteristic way of stepping, so a learner who knows both words can picture an unusual gait and infer a related meaning. However, the precise conventionalized, militarily-specific sense of marching with stiff straight legs is a culturally-coded extension that may not be fully predictable from the parts alone, so prior exposure helps; many languages also use a similar calque, which supports partial recognizability but not full transparency.
Etymology
Goose step as a verb comes from the same picture: to move with very straight, high legs like a goose taking a stiff step, so it means 'to march with stiff, straight legs'.