English Reference

Word

gan

US/ˈɡæn/

UK/ɡˈæn/

Definition

v. (dialect, North-East England / Geordie) to go. For example, 'gan canny' means 'go carefully'.

v. (Northern English / Scots dialect, chiefly Geordie and Northumbrian) to go — a regional variant of 'go', from the same root as 'gang'. Archaically, also the simple past of 'gin', meaning 'began' ('he gan to sing').

Examples

“I'm tired, so I'll gan home now.”

“Are you gannin' to the match on Saturday?”

“The old folk song tells of a miner who must gan to the pit every morning, whatever the weather.”

Examples

simple

“I'm tired, so I'll gan home now.”

contextual

“Are you gannin' to the match on Saturday?”

complex

“The old folk song tells of a miner who must gan to the pit every morning, whatever the weather.”

Usage

Chiefly spoken and dialectal — you'll meet it in Geordie/Northumbrian speech, folk songs, and regional writing rather than standard English.

Real-World Examples

“Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) are a type of generative modeling that utilizes deep learning techniques to generate highly realistic synthetic data.”
ML Anthology · 1 Jan 2025

Domain

Literature

This entry

Level
C2 · Proficiency
Frequency
Occasional
Updated

Scan code

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English Reference