Other forms: goslings
A gosling is a young goose. A line of goslings, the goslings followed, downy goslings.
They imprint on the first moving thing they see and follow it, which is how Konrad Lorenz ended up being trailed by a line of them and how the phenomenon got studied. They can walk and swim within a day of hatching. Note the -ling ending, naming a young one, as in duckling.
1noungoslingA young goose.
“A mother goose led her fluffy goslings down to the pond.”
gosling is a young bird.
Old Norse gaesling is goose plus -ling, an ending naming a young one. Duckling is formed the same way.
Old Norse
gæsling
Middle English
goslyng — gosling
English, today
gosling
Built from
From Late Middle English goslyng (“gosling”), alteration (due to Middle English goos (“goose”)) of earlier gesling (“gosling”), of gmq - origin, from Old Norse gæsling, géslingr (“gosling”), from gás + -lingr, equivalent to goose + -ling. Cognate with Danish gæsling (“gosling”), Swedish gässling (“gosling”). Compare also Low German gossel, gössel (“gosling”), German Gänslein (“gosling”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA