go⋅pher
1
[goh-fer] 
| 1. | any of several ground squirrels of the genus Citellus, of the prairie regions of North America. |
| 2. | pocket gopher. |
| 3. | gopher tortoise. |
| 4. | gopher snake. |
| 5. | (initial capital letter ) a native or inhabitant of Minnesota (used as a nickname). |
| 6. | (initial capital letter) Computers.
|
| 7. | Mining.
|
1785–95; earlier megopher, magopher gopher tortoise; of obscure orig.; sp. copies gopher wood
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
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| go·pher
(gō'fər) Pronunciation Key
n.
[Probably short for earlier megopher, gopher tortoise, of unknown origin.] |
| Go·pher
(gō'fər) Pronunciation Key
n. A protocol for the storage and retrieval of text on a computer network using a TCP/IP protocol. [From the gopher mascot of the University of Minnesota, where the protocol was developed.] |
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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gopher
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| gopher | |
noun | |
| 1. | a zealously energetic person (especially a salesman) [syn: goffer] |
| 2. | a native or resident of Minnesota [syn: Minnesotan] |
| 3. | any of various terrestrial burrowing rodents of Old and New Worlds; often destroy crops [syn: ground squirrel] |
| 4. | burrowing rodent of the family Geomyidae having large external cheek pouches; of Central America and southwestern North America |
| 5. | burrowing edible land tortoise of southeastern North America [syn: gopher tortoise] |
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gopher networking, protocol
A distributed document retrieval system which started as a Campus Wide Information System at the University of Minnesota, and which was popular in the early 1990s.
Gopher is defined in RFC 1436. The protocol is like a primitive form of HTTP (which came later). Gopher lacks the MIME features of HTTP, but expressed the equivalent of a document's MIME type with a one-character code for the "Gopher object type". At time of writing (2001), all Web browers should be able to access gopher servers, although few gopher servers exist anymore.
Tim Berners-Lee, in his book "Weaving The Web" (pp.72-73), related his opinion that it was not so much the protocol limitations of gopher that made people abandon it in favor of HTTP/HTML, but instead the legal missteps on the part of the university where it was developed:
"It was just about this time, spring 1993, that the University of Minnesota decided that it would ask for a license fee from certain classes of users who wanted to use gopher. Since the gopher software being picked up so widely, the university was going to charge an annual fee. The browser, and the act of browsing, would be free, and the server software would remain free to nonprofit and educational institutions. But any other users, notably companies, would have to pay to use gopher server software.
"This was an act of treason in the academic community and the Internet community. Even if the university never charged anyone a dime, the fact that the school had announced it was reserving the right to charge people for the use of the gopher protocols meant it had crossed the line. To use the technology was too risky. Industry dropped gopher like a hot potato."
(2001-03-31)
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gopher
n. A type of Internet service first floated around 1991 and obsolesced around 1995 by the World Wide Web. Gopher presents a menuing interface to a tree or graph of links; the links can be to documents, runnable programs, or other gopher menus arbitrarily far across the net.Some claim that the gopher software, which was originally developed at the University of Minnesota, was named after the Minnesota Gophers (a sports team). Others claim the word derives from American slang `gofer' (from "go for", dialectal "go fer"), one whose job is to run and fetch things. Finally, observe that gophers dig long tunnels, and the idea of tunneling through the net to find information was a defining metaphor for the developers. Probably all three things were true, but with the first two coming first and the gopher-tunnel metaphor serendipitously adding flavor and impetus to the project as it developed out of its concept stage.
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Gopher Flats, OR (CDP, FIPS 30165)
Location: (45.669933, -118.726840)
Population (2000): 401 (166 housing units)
Area: 2.145335 sq mi (land), 0.000000 sq mi (water)
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Gopher
Go"pher\, n. [F. gaufre waffle, honeycomb. See Gauffer.] (Zo["o]l.) 1. One of several North American burrowing rodents of the genera Geomys and Thomomys, of the family Geomyid[ae]; -- called also pocket gopher and pouched rat. See Pocket gopher, and Tucan. Note: The name was originally given by French settlers to many burrowing rodents, from their honeycombing the earth. 2. One of several western American species of the genus Spermophilus, of the family Sciurid[ae]; as, the gray gopher (Spermophilus Franklini) and the striped gopher (S. tridecemlineatus); -- called also striped prairie squirrel, leopard marmot, and leopard spermophile. See Spermophile. 3. A large land tortoise (Testudo Carilina) of the Southern United States, which makes extensive burrows. 4. A large burrowing snake (Spilotes Couperi) of the Southern United States. Gopher drift (Mining), an irregular prospecting drift, following or seeking the ore without regard to regular grade or section. --Raymond.Cite This Source
Gopher
a tree from the wood of which Noah was directed to build the ark (Gen. 6:14). It is mentioned only there. The LXX. render this word by "squared beams," and the Vulgate by "planed wood." Other versions have rendered it "pine" and "cedar;" but the weight of authority is in favour of understanding by it the cypress tree, which grows abundantly in Chaldea and Armenia.
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