Definition
verbTo obtain; to acquire.
Sentence Examples
The police will get you to find the bullets.
"The phone is ringing." "I'll get it."
The bus was late and Sue began to get anxious.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English geten, from Old Norse geta, from Proto-Germanic *getaną (“to find; to acquire, attain, get, hold, receive”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰed- (“to find; to hold; to seize; to take”).
Cognates
Cognate with Yola get (“to get”), Danish gide (“to care, like”), Faroese gita (“to be able”), Icelandic geta (“to be able; to beget, father; to achieve, obtain, to guess; to mention”), Norwegian Nynorsk gjeta, gjete (“to guess; to mention”), Scanian gida (“to have the energy to, to feel up for”), gæda (“to guess”), Swedish gita, gitta (“to be able, to bring oneself to, to care”), Gothic 𐌱𐌹𐌲𐌹𐍄𐌰𐌽 (bigitan, “to discover, find”); also Latin edera, hedera (“ivy”), praeda (“booty, pillage, plunder; prey; gain, profit”), prehendō, prēndō (“to grab, grasp, seize; to attain, reach”), Ancient Greek χανδάνω (khandánō, “to comprise, contain, hold”), Albanian gjej (“to find”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Afore we got to the shanty Colonel Applegate stuck his head out of the door. His temper had been getting raggeder all the time, and the sousing he got when he fell overboard had just about ripped what was left of it to ravellings."
— 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 175:
""Yeah, and I got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you," was Peter's response to his wife."
— 2012, James Hibbitts, Joe Roberts, The Secret of Graveyard Hill, Tate Publishing, →ISBN, page 74:
"Get thee out from this land."
— 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 31:13:
"He[…]got himself[…]to the strong town of Mega."
— 1603, Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes, […], London: […] Adam Islip, →OCLC, page 634:
"Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand. We spent consider'ble money getting 'em reset, and then a swordfish got into the pound and tore the nets all to slathers, right in the middle of the squiteague season."
— 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 6: