gooseneck

From goose +‎ neck.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɡusˌnɛk/

gooseneck (plural goosenecks)

1. (often attributive) Anything with a slender curved shape, resembling the neck of a goose, such as the shaft of some lamps.

   A gooseneck lamp can be swiveled around an object, allowing a good examination of all its surfaces.

   • 1961, James S. Holton, Sound Language Teaching: The State of the Art Today, page 77:

     The gooseneck microphone. Mounted to the desk or to the side wall of the booth, the gooseneck offers a limited degree of flexibility for height and depth adjustment of the microphone.

2. (nautical) The swivel connection on a sailboat located near the bottom of the mast that the boom attaches to. When a sailboat performs a tack or a jibe the gooseneck swings the boom from one side of the boat to the other.
   • 1914, Jack London, The Mutiny of the Elsinore, Chapter XLVI:

     The port-brace, and immediately afterwards the starboard-brace, of the crojack-yard--carried away. This was the big, lowest spar on the mizzen, and as the huge thing of steel swung wildly back and forth the gangster and his followers turned and crouched as they looked up to see. Next, the gooseneck of the truss, on which it pivoted, smashed away. Immediately the lifts and lower-topsail sheets parted, and with a fore-and-aft pitch of the ship the spar up-ended and crashed to the deck upon Number Three hatch, destroying that section of the bridge in its fall.

3. Ellipsis of gooseneck barnacle.

• gooseneck barnacle
• gooseneck pediment