goodness gracious

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Idioms and Phrases

Also, good gracious ; gracious sakes . Exclamation of surprise, dismay, or alarm, as in Goodness gracious! You've forgotten your ticket . Both goodness and gracious originally alluded to the good (or grace) of God, but these colloquial expressions, which date from the 1700s, are not considered either vulgar or blasphemous.

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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