▪ I. gawk, n.
(gɔːk)
[perh. f. next; but see gawk v.]
An awkward person; a fool; a simpleton.
Johnson, followed by later lexicographers, confounds this with gowk, cuckoo, simpleton.
| 1837 H. Martineau Soc. Amer. I. 299 They [his sons] proved ‘such gawks’ that they were unable to learn. 1850 Mrs. Carlyle Lett. (1883) II. 114 That barenecked hooing gawk Stewart. 1894 Hall Caine Manxman 10 The girl was by common judgment and report a gawk. |
▪ II. gawk, n.2 colloq. or dial.
(gɔːk)
[f. gawk v.]
A look, a glance.
| 1940 S. O'Casey Let. 6 Nov. (1975) I. 873 Why not have a little gawk, now and again, at Finnegans Wake? 1941 Ibid. 9 July 892, I should..love to have a gawk at your chairmanship. 1978 E. O'Brien Mary in Mrs. Reinhardt & Other Stories 132, I had a gawk at the letter she got. |
▪ III. gawk, a.
(gɔːk)
Also gauk.
[Of difficult etymology; app. a contraction of a disyllabic word which appears in many north-Eng. dialects as gaulick-, galloc-, gaulish- (hand, handed): see Ray N.C. Words 1674–91 (E.D.S.), Thoresby Let. to Ray 1703 (E.D.S.), and the Whitby and Mid-Yorks. glossaries.
The natural assumption that the word represents an adoption of a prehistoric form of F. gauche has grave difficulties: it is not certain that the etymon of the Fr. word had an l at all (see Hatz.-Darm., where it is assumed that the word has lost a nasal); and even on the common view that gauche represents an OLow Frankish *walki, it would be expected that an Eng. adoption old enough to retain the l would have w as the initial.]
Left. Also in Comb., as gawk-handed.
| 1703 Thoresby Let. to Ray (E.D.S.) Gawk hand, Gallock hand, [the] left hand. 1855 Robinson Whitby Gloss., Gauk-handed, left-handed. 1876 Mid-Yorksh. Gloss., Gawk-hand, the left hand. |
▪ IV. gawk, v. colloq., orig. U.S. or dial.
(gɔːk)
Also gauk.
[perh. f. the n.; possibly, on the other hand, an iterative f. gaw v. (with suffix as in tal-k, wal-k, lur-k), in which case it may be the source of the n.]
intr. To stare or gape stupidly.
| 1785 M. Cutler in Life, Jrnls. & Corr. (1888) II. 227 We..do little else than sit in the chimney-corner, repeating over the same dull stories, or gawking at one another with sorry grimace. 1862 Mrs. Stoddard Morgesons xiii. (1889) 68 The whole table stared as we seated ourselves..‘How they gawk at you’, whispered Temperance. a 1866 Keble in Sir J. Coleridge Mem. K. (1869) 111 Making one ashamed of going gawking as one is wont to do about the world. 1869 Lonsdale Gloss., Gauk, to stare vacantly. 1883 Harper's Mag. Sept. 528/1 I'd like t' know what you'd say if I went down thar and gawked around like you do up yere. 1890 Gloucestersh. Gloss., Gawk, to loiter and gape about. 1905 Westm. Gaz. 30 Mar. 8/1 Many of the audience turned round to ‘gawk’—as he phrased it—at a poor fainting girl. 1959 ‘M. Ainsworth’ Murder is Catching vii. 82 Everyone will come and gawk. 1965 C. D. Eby Siege of Alcázar (1966) ii. 58 Gawking in wonder at the falling bombs. |
Hence ˈgawking ppl. a.
| 1892 Stevenson & L. Osbourne Wrecker (ed. 2) 237 Unmindful of the gawking creatures that struggled and died among their feet. |
Add: ˈgawker n., one who gawks.
| 1951 Harper's Mag. July 96/1 The simple gawker and head-turner is changing into something that looks suspiciously like a historian on wheels. 1977 Detroit Free Press 11 Dec. 22-a/2 Gawkers filled the street outside Nadine's condominium the Thursday night after her death and police had to rope off little Gary Lane. 1986 L. Tourney Bartholomew Fair Murders (1987) ix. 88 Some of the gawkers began to disperse,..because their curiosity was satisfied. |