gawk
Americanverb (used without object)
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gawks,
present (3rd person singular)
-
gawked,
past participle, past
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gawking
present participle
noun
noun
verb
Usage
Where does the word gawk come from? We've all gawked, or "stared stupidly," at various spectacles, from acrobats to celebrity meltdowns. Word nerds gawk at the origin of gawk—because it's a spectacular puzzle. Gawk is recorded in 1775–85 in American English. It's believed that gawk is based on an Old English word meaning "fool," which appears in gawk hand or gallock hand, referring to the left hand. Our apologies, lefties. An alternative idea is that gawk is based on gaw, an old word meaning "to gaze, stare," with an additional -k suffix found in other words such as talk and stalk. Stubborn isn’t alone: it finds lots of company in other English words that seem simple but whose origins are not. Discover more in our slideshow “‘Dog,’ ‘Boy,’ And Other Words That We Don’t Know Where They Came From."
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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gawksimple
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gawkssimple
-
have gawkedperfect
-
has gawkedperfect
-
am gawkingprogressive
-
are gawkingprogressive
-
is gawkingprogressive
-
have been gawkingperfect progressive
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has been gawkingperfect progressive
Past
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gawkedsimple
-
had gawkedperfect
-
was gawkingprogressive
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were gawkingprogressive
-
had been gawkingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of gawk
1775–85; apparently representing OE word meaning fool, equivalent to ga(gol) foolish + -oc -ock; used attributively in gawk hand, gallock hand left hand
Explanation
When you stare in amazement at something, you gawk at it. You might stand frozen in one position with your mouth and eyes wide open and gawk when you see a famous movie star on the street. The verb gawk was first recorded in American English in 1785. It may have evolved from the word gaw, which came from the Middle English word gowen, meaning "to stare." When you gawk at something, you get completely absorbed in what you're looking at. It's usually not considered polite behavior to gawk at another person, especially if it's someone you find attractive. After all, staring is rude.
Vocabulary lists containing gawk
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
So-called rogues galleries allowed the public to gawk at images.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026
Yet the lizard brain making you gawk is shrieking.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2026
To them, he is something to gawk at while patting themselves on the back for “accepting” him.
From Salon ● Nov. 26, 2025
Normally closed to the public, these inspiring gardens have a lot to gawk at.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 10, 2025
Saying all that stuff about not letting myself be invisible was easy enough in the Spinney, where there was no Edie to sneer at me, nobody to gawk at me or pretend I’m not there.
From "How to Disappear Completely" by Ali Standish
Anyone who sits through the end credits of a franchise movie and gawks at screens filled with hundreds of names of special effects and visual effects crew knows most of the is digitally animated.
From Salon ● Aug. 2, 2024
The best ones are also well-constructed and stylishly shot works that simultaneously elicit gawks and delight.
From Washington Post ● May 11, 2017
Carolyn Hax advises a woman whose husband gawks at pretty women online and describes himself as an arrogant liar.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 22, 2017
Awaiting glitterati arrivals for a red-carpet event down the block, the crowd gawks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2016
Everyone gawks over how beautiful the cake is.
From "Piecing Me Together" by Renée Watson
In addition to a steady stream of sellers, the machine also drew the attention of bystanders who gawked at the large sums of money changing hands at the unassuming corner of the mall.
From Barron's ● Feb. 1, 2026
Movie stars didn’t like being gawked at by tourists.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 7, 2026
In Brooklyn’s Prospect Park on Sunday, onlookers gawked at a charred hilltop, where newly fallen leaves had already obscured the scorched earth of Friday’s 2-acre brushfire.
From Slate ● Nov. 12, 2024
Before a Syracuse-Virginia Tech game matching the alma maters of his great uncle and father, Sturdivant gawked at the size of the players, the eighth-grader never thinking he could measure up.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 7, 2023
When he handed it back, I gawked at the rose-gold adinkra resting next to Anansi’s symbol.
From "Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky" by Kwame Mbalia
Shooting in New York is a very interesting experience because you have all these outliers just watching and gawking.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 4, 2026
"It's actually like looking at a digital image of your new dinosaur and gawking over it in the tent in the middle of the Sahara."
From Barron's ● Feb. 27, 2026
Barnum gradually expanded these gardens to include museums and theaters, where families could do everything from gawking at unusual people or animals to watching performances of fairy-tale characters like Aladdin or Goldilocks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 15, 2026
The 66-year-old Sydneysider remembers gawking at enormous great white sharks hauled in by fishermen as a kid, back in the days the now-protected species could still be legally hunted.
From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2025
"We have an audience who pays to see us; we don't need you lot standing about gawking."
From "The Shakespeare Stealer" by Gary L. Blackwood
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
