verb (used without object)
- to stare stupidly; gape: The onlookers gawked at arriving celebrities.
noun
- an awkward, foolish person.
noun
- a clumsy stupid person; lout
verb
- (intr) to stare in a stupid way; gape
1785, American English, perhaps from gaw, a survival from Middle English gowen “to stare” (c.1200), from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse ga “to heed,” from Proto-Germanic *gawon-, from PIE *ghow-e- “to honor, revere, worship” (see favor (n.)); and altered perhaps by gawk hand (see gawky). Liberman writes that it “need not have been derived from gowk. It is possibly another independent imitative formation with the structure g-k. Related: Gawked; gawking.