got
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The past and past participle of get is as productive of idiom as the verb as a whole. Some noteworthy uses are informal and verge on the non-standard:
- Use with to-infinitive, meaning 'to have an opportunity to': This was considered a bonus for me, because I got to sit in the front—F. Kidman, New Zealand English 1988 / Mark and his mother had moved to Holland when he was just four months old, meaning he never got to meet his dad—Mirror, 2004.
- Elliptical for have got = possess: What you got in that jar, Alvie?—M. Eldridge, Australian English 1984 / I can't get my head around it, Sharon. Suddenly I got three fathers—Times, 1987 / Right now, we got nine cops in the Miami police department being tried for murder—The Face, American English 1987.
- Got to, elliptical for have got to = must: We just got to live. Isn't that so?—A. Fugard, South African English 1980 / 'We got to help these people,' he says, 'any way we can.'—Newsweek, 1990.
- Use of got to be to mean 'came round to being': It got to be 11 p.m. We left the way we had come—New Yorker, 1989.
| gossip, google, goodbye | |
| gotten, gourmand, gourmet, government, governance |
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got
IN BRIEF: Gained possession of, received, acquired, earned, or bought.
Never trust anyone who wants what you've got. Friend or no, envy is an overwhelming emotion.
— Blythe Holbrooke.
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