Other forms: goals
A goal is the net you are trying to put the ball into, and also the point you get for doing it. The keeper stands in the goal, the striker scores a goal, and the whole stand stands up.
Away from the pitch, a goal is anything you are working towards: saving for a deposit, learning to swim, finishing the course by June. You set a goal, work towards it, reach it or miss it, and offices are full of short-term and long-term goals. The football half gives goalkeeper, goalie, goalpost and goal line; the other half gives goal-oriented and goal-setting. In hockey and American football the word does the same two jobs. Aim is the plain word for the second sense and objective is the formal one.
1nounframeThe frame with a net that a team tries to put the ball into.~2%
“The ball hit the side of the goal and bounced back out.”
2noungoalA point scored when the ball goes into that net.~49%
“They were still one goal behind at half time.”
3nounaimSomething you are working to achieve.~49%
“Her goal is to finish the degree before the baby comes.”
synonyms: ambition, end
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 16 sentences found in the wild and placed 16 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Goal started life as a boundary. Middle English gol meant boundary, limit, and behind it stands Old English gāl, an obstacle, a barrier, a marker, from Proto-Germanic *gailō, a crevice or gap. Both modern senses are the same picture from different angles: a mark at the far end of the field, and a mark at the far end of the plan.
Proto-Germanic
*gailō — crevice, gap
Proto-West Germanic
*gailu
Old English
*gāl — obstacle, barrier, marker
Middle English
gol — boundary, limit
English, today
goal
From Middle English gol (“boundary, limit”), from Old English gāl (“obstacle, barrier, marker”), from Proto-West Germanic gailu, from Proto-Germanic gailō (“crevice, gap”); compare the Old English's derivatives Old English gǣlan (“to hinder, delay”), and hyġegǣls (“hesitating, slow, sluggish”), hyġegǣlsa (“slow one, sluggish one”). Possibly cognate with Lithuanian gãlas (“end”), Latvian gals (“end”), prg gallan (“death”), Albanian ngalem (“to be limping, lame, paralyzed”), ngel (“to remain, linger, hesitate, get stuck”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA