gawk

• IPA^(key): /ɡɔːk/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /ɡɑk/
• Rhymes: -ɔːk

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

Compare also French gauche, and English gawky and gallock.

gawk (plural gawks)

1. A cuckoo; (sometimes by extension) any gawky bird.
   • 1898, Ari Thorgilsson, The Book of the Settlement of Iceland, page 105:

     His morning prey he craveth; So crowed the gawk of carrion⁶ […] (6) Gawk of carrion = [kenning for] raven.

   • 1910, John Bunyan Robinson, Bird Or Feather Convention ..., page 11:

     Some sneakingly fly watching, as the hawk; Or, as a Cuckoo, grow to limb as a gawk.

   • 1916, Inez N. McFee, “The Cuckoos”, in Home and School Visitor, page 276:

     I WONDER if you know the cuckoos. […] In Scotlad the popular name for the cuckoo is "the gawk," which means fool. […] But our American cuckoos are a long way from gawks. Indeed many farmers consider them fine weather prophets.

   • 1923, The New Reliable Poultry Journal, page 640:

     […] threw into a market crate regretfully a somewhat gawky, long-legged youngster that was otherwise exceptionally fine. A neighbour rescued the gawk from the market crate and the two birds as cocks competed in a local show. The "gawk" won. Why? […] the gawk [appeared] of good station.

   • 1972, Bernhard Grzimek, Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia: Birds I-III:

     […] cuckoos proper have fourteen cervical vertebrae and no feather crest. The ejection urge is well developed in them.
     The gawks [:] There are three genera with thirteen species of gawks. A. THICK-BILLED CUCKOOS (Pachycoccyx) have only one species […]

2. A fool; a simpleton; a stupid or clumsy person.
   • 1855, Thomas Carlyle, The Prinzenraub, Westminster Review:

     A Duke of Weissenfels, for instance; foolish old gawk, whom Wilhehnina Princess Royal recollects for his distracted notions, — which were well shaken out of him by Wilhelmina's Brother afterwards.

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

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.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:stare

3. (colloquial, vulgar) To suck.

gawk (plural gawks)

1. A conspicuous or stupid stare or gape; an instance of gawking.
   • 1991, Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly:

     ... the gawks and gapes of townsfolk as stares of admiration.

   • 2017 March 7, Cat Sparks, Lotus Blue, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN:

     ... the gawks and gapes of those who'd expected him to be long dead, […]