English

Alternative forms

• gotch, ginch, gitch, gonchies, gotchies, ginchies, gitchies

Noun

gonch ‎(plural gonch)

1. (Alberta and British Columbia, slang) Men's brief-style underwear.

   Make sure you do laundry tonight, I'm going to need some clean gonch in the morning

   • 1996, Richard Van Camp, The Lesser Blessed, Douglas & McIntyre (1996), ISBN 1550545256, unnumbered page:

     He was standing in his gonch with his big belly hanging over.

   • 2005, Robert Arthur Strandquist, A Small Dog Barking: Stories, Anvil Press (2005), ISBN 9781895636697, page 29:

     He rented a room in his old neighbourhood and relaxed in his gonch.

   • 2012, Savanna Fox, The Dirty Girls Book Club, Berkley (2012), ISBN 9781101611364, unnumbered page:

     “So long as the ad's masculine and not too arty. Arty works for metrosexuals and gays, but not guys who think of themselves as 'real men.' Maybe have him in his gonch doing stuff like sharpening his skate blades.”

Usage notes

Used in British Columbia and Alberta. Gitch and gotch are variants heard east of Alberta. It is also acceptable to append -ies to any of these variants, especially when referring to the underwear of male children. The term is becoming more widespread in use as a result of the rise in popularity of Vancouver-based undergarment company GinchGonch. A gotch-pull or gonch-pull is another name for a wedgie.

References

• “gaunch", "gonch", "gotch", "gotchies", "ginch", "gitch” in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Barber, Katherine. "11 Favourite Regionalisms Within Canada", in David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace (2005). The Book of Lists, Canadian Edition. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-676-97720-2.