Gawk
late 17th century (as a noun): perhaps related to obsolete gaw ‘to gaze’, from Old Norse gá ‘heed’.
wiktionary
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. More at yeke.
Compare also French gauche, and English gawky and gallock.
Perhaps from English dialectal gaw(“to stare; gawk”) + -k, as in talk, stalk, etc., ultimately from Old Norse gá(“to heed”) [1].
etymonline
gawk (v.)
"stare stupidly," 1785, American English, of uncertain origin. Perhaps [Watkins] 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 finds this untenable and writes that its history is entangled with that of gowk "cuckoo," which is from Scandinavian, but it need not be from that word, either. Nor is French gauche (itself probably from Germanic) considered a likely source. "It is possibly another independent imitative formation with the structure g-k" (compare geek). From 1867 as a noun. Related: Gawked; gawking.
