gound

Alternative forms

• gund (dialectal)

Etymology

From Middle English gound, gownde, from Old English gund (“matter, pus, poison”), from Proto-Germanic *gundaz (“sore, boil”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰendʰ- (“ulcer, sore, abscess, boil”). Cognate with Old High German gunt (“purulent matter”), dialectal Norwegian gund (“the scab of an ulcer”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡaʊnd/
• Rhymes: -aʊnd

Noun

gound (uncountable)

1. Mucus produced by the eyes during sleep.
   • 2002, Peter Novobatzky, Ammon Shea, Depraved and Insulting English:

     Typical terms invented to fill this vacuum include sleepies, eye-snot, and bed-boogers. The correct word, however, is gound. "Collin was never one to dillydally in the morning: by the time he had rubbed the gound out of his eyes he was usually on his third Manhattan."

   • 2004, Bart King, Chris Sabatino, The Big Book of Boy Stuff:

     Your eyes get dried mucus in them while you sleep. The stuff is sometimes called bed-boogers or eye-snot, but to be accurate, it is "gound".

   • 2009, Ammon Shea, Reading the OED:

     The gunk that collects in the corners of the eyes. Gound is the perfect example of a word that is practically useless, and yet still nice to know.

2. (Britain dialectal) Gummy matter in sore eyes.

Anagrams

• Duong, undog, ungod