ござる

ござる (irregular conjugation, rōmaji gozaru)

1. 御座る: (archaic) to exist, to be, to have

   In classical Japanese ござる (gozaru) was the polite form of ある (aru), but applicable both to animate and to inanimate objects. It survives in modern Japanese only in the inflected forms ございました (gozaimashita), ございましたら (gozaimashitara), ございます (gozaimasu), and です (desu), originally a contraction of でございます (de gozaimasu). - "Go" is a politeness prefix, "za" is the equivalent of "aru" in Sino-Japanese, and finally "ru" is a suffix for verbs. Another interesting opinion is that it is a contraction of ござある, gozaaru, composed of 御座, goza (« noble seat ») and of ある, aru (« to exist »), literally « to be on a noble seat ».