Definition of "gadzooks" [gadzooks]

• Used as a mild or ironic oath: "Gadzooks! Is there a panic detector, akin to a smoke detector, that sniffs anxiety in the air?” ( George F. Will). (interjection)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "In addition, they considered the surprising success of Mr. Marmaduke Fennel's eighteenth-century story, For Love of a Lady, as compared with the more moderate sales of Miss Elspeth Lancaster's In Scarlet Sidon, that candid romance of the brothel; deducing therefrom that the "gadzooks" and "by'r lady" type of reading-matter was ready to revive in vogue."
• "Isn't the lady writing, not in her original Bangla (red lines again!) or Bengali (better!) but – gadzooks – in English?"
• "This afternoon, two local Union 76/Conoco Phillips (gadzooks, these mergers make for long names) gas stations in my Los Angeles neighborhood posted the number I recently anticipated would be the price this summer: full serve 91-Octane (premium) gasoline: $4.99/gallon."