English

Noun

ghit ‎(plural ghits)

1. A hit obtained using the search engine Google.
   • 2004, 3 February, Trevor, kalebeul, post Shame:

     Igry (1/2/3) – a (research-driven?) neologism expressing a voyeuristic, laissez-faire sense of shame – already gets slightly more ghits (ca 200 to 175, once you’ve sifted out the Russians) than its Catalan equivalent, vergonya aliena, although it’s still way behind plaatsvervangende schaamte and vergüenza ajena (not to mention verguenza ajena).

   • 2004, 9 February, Mark Liberman, Language Log, post Igry and ghits:

     For me, though, the most important thing in his post is the neologism ghits. Now there's a word that fills a need! I don't know if this is Trevor's coinage, but it seems to be pretty new: "ghits" has 2380 ghits, at the moment, but all the 50 or so that I checked were programming language variable names, words in languages other than English, alternative spellings of "gits", or jokes like "ghits and siggles". Anyhow, I'm in Trevor's debt for the tip, and if he's the author, he deserves immortal renown.

     …

     Update: it seems that Trevor is the responsible party. He's posted that

     I am having 1,500 cards printed with "ghit = google hit © 2004 followthebaldie.com" and am going to flog them down the Ramblas this lunchtime. I am unsure as to whether this constitutes a business plan.

   • 2004, 8 August, Mark Liberman, Language Log, post Superfluity and Uselessness:

     “Fifth wheel” is a common expression for superfluity, common in frames like “feel like a fifth wheel” (538 ghits), but it's not so commonly used in the frame “ADJ as a ___”.

   • 2004, 22 October, TEFL Smiler, post Searching Sue de Nimes:

     I'm quite baffled, in fact, that there are so few ghits (Google hits) for this search, as the idea seems so obvious. Even if you spell it without the final 's', you end up with only one extra ghit.

   • 2005, 9 May, Derek Thornton, forum post (broken link):

     "In the meantime, I am working on the specification for a Word-Add-on ("Ghit-it?"®). It scans keyboard input continuously, Google-searches the Internet in the background for each term, phrase, or expression and generates an error message if its ghit-value is below a preset threshold, or optionally replaces the term or expression with the nearest equivalent having the highest ghit count.