1) A water course or channel, a word which occurs from the thirteenth century as a minor place-name element.
1261 ab Hundolfgote usque ad viam quć ducit ad passagium de Hull. In particular it was the word for the leat of a water-mill or ‘wheel’, and early examples include: 1350 et pro reparacione … del Gote Molendini [for the repair of the mill goit], Hartshead
1502-3 abut on the middle of the water of Wentt on the south and on le Gott on the north, Cowick
1594 one goote by the highe waie side, Dewsbury
1663 not dressing the common goates, Patrington. Several different spellings are in evidence, most commonly ‘goit’ in the West Riding, still in active use with characteristic diphthongisation of the vowel: 1421 ‘a gutter there called le Watergoyte’, Tickhill. The earthworks associated with goits to water wheels could be substantial, and references are increasingly detailed in deeds from the sixteenth century: 1586 with sufficient ground to cast the soyghe [sough] of the said goatt upon
1791 to cut and make a Goit from the intended dam, through a parcel of land … walling the said intended Goit on each side thereof with a good and substancial wall and arching or covering, Thongsbridge.