Gothic Cathedrals had nothing to do with the "barbarian" tribes of the Goths, but historians such as Giorgio Vasari pioneered the trend of insulting Middle Aged European culture and the terms have sort of stuck ever since. Same story as well with Gothic architecture.
That and early Sans Serifs were rather unrefined and illegible. Gothic was used to describe Sans Serifs initially because they took a fairly severe departure from the then current trend of Roman type traditions with very humanist forms based on centuries of perfection throughout antiquity & their revival during the Italian Renaissance. The same sort of principle applies for the term Grotesk which of course translates into grotesque (absurd or bizarre). Often times if you see the word Gothic being used to describe something that has nothing to do with the actual tribal Kingdoms of the Goths, it's being used to describe something in negative terms, as was the case for the early Sans Serifs. Historically "Gothic" is often used as a derogatory term, a sort of linguistic shorthand for barbaric. It really depends on the context of the word being used throughout history. The question has been appropriately answered but I felt I could demystify this ambiguity between "Gothic" referring to Sans-Serif or Blackletter typefaces.
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