Gawk
To stare openly, usually with too little subtlety - at a tourist, a celebrity, a fight in the chip shop. As a noun, an awkward person; one who gawks. Both senses were originally one word.
Etymology
Two strands meeting at the same root. The noun comes from a variant of 'gowk', Middle English 'gowke', from Old Norse 'gaukr' meaning cuckoo. The cuckoo-as-fool figure is old in Germanic languages: a gawk was first a bird, then by extension a person who stared dimly. The verb 'to gawk' is likely from English dialectal 'gaw' (to stare) plus a -k suffix on the pattern of talk and stalk, ultimately from Old Norse 'gá' (to heed).
In a sentence
In Scotland the popular name for the cuckoo is 'the gawk,' which means fool. - Inez N. McFee, 1916
Historical notes
Gawk is widely current in modern English - the verb sense in particular travels well outside Ireland - but it carries a rural, open-mouthed register in Hiberno-English that the urban 'stare' or 'ogle' do not. The cuckoo etymology is a small treasure: in Scots and Northern English the cuckoo was 'the gawk', and a foolish person was named after the bird that lays its eggs in another's nest and walks away.
Sources
- Oxford English Dictionary, entries gawk n. and gawk v. · dictionary
- McFee, Inez N. (1916), cited via Wiktionary. · academic