gawk

English

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From a variant of gowk, from Middle English gowke, from Old Norse gaukr (“cuckoo”), from Proto-Germanic *gaukaz (“cuckoo”). Cognate with Danish gøg, Swedish gök, German Gauch, Old English ġēac. More at yeke.

Compare also French gauche, and English gawky and gallock.

Noun

gawk (plural gawks)

  1. A cuckoo.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Johnson to this entry?)
  2. A fool.
    • 1855 Thomas Carlyle, The Prinzenraub, Westminster Review
      A Duke of Weissenfels, for instance; foolish old gawk, whom [Princess Royal] recollects for his distracted notions, — which were well shaken out of him by Wilhelmina's Brother afterwards.
  3. A simpleton; a stupid or clumsy person.

Translations

Etymology 2

Perhaps from English dialectal gaw (“to stare; gawk”) +‎ -k, as in talk, stalk, etc., ultimately from Old Norse gá (“to heed”)[1].

Verb

gawk (third-person singular simple present gawks, present participle gawking, simple past and past participle gawked)

  1. To stare or gape stupidly.
  2. To stare conspicuously.

Derived terms

Translations

References

  1. ↑ “gawk” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2018.
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