Wayzgoose

An entertainment given to journeymen, or provided by the journeymen themselves. It is mainly a printersʹ affair, which literary men and commercial staffs may attend by invitation or sufferance. The word wayz means a “bundle of straw,” and wayzgoose a “stubble goose,” properly the crowning dish of the entertainment. The Dutch wassen means “to wax fat.” The Latin anser sigatum. (See Beanfeast, Harvest Goose.)

“In the midlands and north of England, every newspaper has its wayzgoose.”—The Pall Mall Gazette, June 26th, 1894.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.