"one who organizes public entertainments," 1746, from Italian impresario "operatic manager," literally "undertaker (of a business)," from impresa "undertaking, enterprise, attempt," fem. of impreso, past participle of imprendere "undertake," from Vulgar Latin *imprendere, from assimilated form of Latin in- "into, in, on, onto" (from PIE root *en "in") + Latin prehendere "to grasp" (from prae- "before;" see pre-, + -hendere, from PIE root *ghend- "to seize, take").
early 15c., obteinen, "to get or acquire, inherit, gain, conquer," from Old French obtenir "acquire, obtain" (14c.) and directly from Latin obtinere "hold, hold fast, take hold of, get possession of, acquire," from ob "in front of" (though perhaps intensive in this case; see ob-) + tenere "to hold," from PIE root *ten- "to stretch." Intransitive sense of "be prevalent or customary, be established in practice" is from 1610s. Related: Obtained; obtaining.
"worthless person," 1946, British slang, a southern variant of Scottish get "illegitimate child, brat," which is attested by 1706 ("Gregor Burgess protested against the said Allane that called him a witch gyt or bratt"), according to "Dictionary of the Scots Language"); related to beget on the notion of "what is got." Scots get, gyt, geitt, etc. also can be an affectionate term for a child.
c. 1300, gessen "to infer from observation, perceive, find out; form an opinion, judge, decide, discern; evaluate, estimate the number, importance, etc. of," perhaps from Scandinavian (compare Middle Danish gitse, getze "to guess," Old Norse geta "guess, get"), or from or influenced by Middle Dutch gessen, Middle Low German gissen "to guess," all from Proto-Germanic *getan "to get" (see get (v.)).
The prehistoric sense evolution then would be from "get," to "take aim at," to "to estimate." Meaning "to hit upon the right answer" is from 1540s. The spelling with gu- is late 16c., sometimes attributed to Caxton and his early experience as a printer in Bruges. Related: Guessed; guessing.
Guessing game attested from 1650s. To keep (someone) guessing "keep him in a state of suspense" is from 1896, American English.
[T]he legitimate, English sense of this word is to conjecture; but with us, and especially in New England, it is constantly used in common conversation instead of to believe, to suppose, to think, to imagine, to fancy. [Bartlett, "Dictionary of Americanisms," 1848]
before vowels mer-, word-forming element meaning "part, partial, fraction," from Greek meros "a part, a fraction," from PIE root *(s)mer- (2) "to get a share of something."
command to a horse to go, 1909, probably an extended form of earlier giddap (1867), itself probably from get up. Compare gee.
The terms used to start horses in harness and to urge them to a better appreciation of the value of time comprise vulgar corruptions of ordinary speech and peculiar inarticulate sounds. Throughout England and the United States drivers start their horses by picking up the reins, drawing them gently against the animals' mouths, and exclaiming go 'long and get up; the latter appears in the forms get ap (a as in hat), giddap, and gee-hup or gee-up. [H. Carrington Bolton, "Talking to Domestic Animals," in The American Anthropologist, March 1897]
