goatwise en · ADV
Etymology
From goat + -wise.
Meanings
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(not-comparable) In an goatlike manner.
Suddenly Pronto shied violently, tried to bolt up the cliff, scrambling goatwise for twenty feet to stand shivering and snorting. Sandy's balance was automatic, the muscles of his knees clamped for grip, he gave the pinto its head, trusting to it to establish footing.
1922, J. Allan Dunn, “Chapter II: Casey”, in Rimrock Trail, A.L. Burt, by arrangement with the Bobbs-Merrill Company, page 15:Among Montana Power's many interesting developments we should mention that at Mystic Lake, in Stillwater County, where a 1,127-foot, high-head plant, located on government-owned land, was constructed 16 years ago. […] develop a 15,000 horsepower hydroelectric plant for eastern Montana. In preparing for the blast it was necessary to build 14 miles of highway through primitive mountain passes. Then surveyors, goatwise, staked a ledge nearly two miles long on the steep side of a mountain to lay a five-foot wood […]
1940, Montana Power Company, The Story of Montana Power, Montana Power Company, page 36:"Special edition!" Ginny shrilled. His tiptoes covered, with all the sensations of his young and eager flesh, further miles of streets, streets where the inmates of houses, behind their drawn blinds, would answer, with a querulous reluctance, the adamant cries with which he called them out. "Come on an' git yer special extry!" he yelled. […] His lungs expanded in his thin, tight chest. He leaped goatwise. With the vim of a small hurricane, he sowed his yells, his vindication. "Extry edition, Special edition. Special, special, special, special!" Jesus, he'd be sorry when the war was over—but he'd be rich by then.
1929, Evelyn Scott, The Wave, J. Cape and H. Smith, page 284:
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(not-comparable) With regard to goats.
It was assumed, when Johns Hopkins showed the way, that every university student was or should be engaged in original research and thus a candidate for the doctor's degree. This not unnatural assumption had the unfortunate result of dividing all graduate students, sheepwise and goatwise, into those who got the doctorate and those who failed, and here the M.A. came in as a solatium. To pursué higher studies for a year without enlisting as an investigator thus became respectable. This was a gain. It enabled school teachers and college graduates of scholarly tastes to undertake university studies without later having to explain that they had not been refused the doctorate.
1911 February 23, The Nation, volume 92, number 2382, page 186:
Coordinates
ovinely · sheepily · sheepwise · sheepishly