as in staring
to look long and hard in wonder or surprise
couldn't help gawking at the exotically dressed guests in the hotel lobby
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Recent Examples of gawking
Those are important characteristics for advertisers seeking to make dynamic campaigns for an audience that's grown accustomed to viewing short-form videos on Reels or gawking at cat photos on Facebook and Instagram.
—
Jonathan Vanian, CNBC, 9 Apr. 2026
On a typical day, the Southwest Wildlife Conservation Center in Scottsdale reverberates with animal cries and the footfalls of gawking visitors.
—Shi En Kim, AZCentral.com, 20 Feb. 2026
Armed soldiers patrolled in droves, spreading hate and fear everywhere, blindfolding children, pointing guns, gawking, spitting, laughing at us like animals in the zoo.
—Literary Hub, 20 Feb. 2026
Setting aside the gawking nature of certain style choices (the warped, swiveling, 360-degree shots used when someone starts talking about particularly demented ideas are nauseating on multiple levels), the series too closely mirrors its subjects’ insularity.
—Ben Travers, IndieWire, 13 Feb. 2026
If gawking at celebrities is your thing.
—Randy Myers, Mercury News, 20 Jan. 2026
Here, astronomers are gawking at a radio signal that appears crudely on the screen like a crooked game of Pong but turns out to be a line of data repeated every 78 seconds from 600 light-years away.
—Scott Tobias, Vulture, 7 Nov. 2025
But the cringe-comedy antics of the original NBC series landed far better in Season 3 than in Season 1, once audiences began to truly love the characters instead of just gawking at them.
—Kelly Lawler, USA Today, 3 Sep. 2025
It wasn’t created for superficial lust or leering, gawking eyes.
—Kaila Yu, Condé Nast Traveler, 19 Aug. 2025
Jonathan Vanian, CNBC, 9 Apr. 2026
On a typical day, the Southwest Wildlife Conservation Center in Scottsdale reverberates with animal cries and the footfalls of gawking visitors.
—Shi En Kim, AZCentral.com, 20 Feb. 2026
Armed soldiers patrolled in droves, spreading hate and fear everywhere, blindfolding children, pointing guns, gawking, spitting, laughing at us like animals in the zoo.
—Literary Hub, 20 Feb. 2026
Setting aside the gawking nature of certain style choices (the warped, swiveling, 360-degree shots used when someone starts talking about particularly demented ideas are nauseating on multiple levels), the series too closely mirrors its subjects’ insularity.
—Ben Travers, IndieWire, 13 Feb. 2026
If gawking at celebrities is your thing.
—Randy Myers, Mercury News, 20 Jan. 2026
Here, astronomers are gawking at a radio signal that appears crudely on the screen like a crooked game of Pong but turns out to be a line of data repeated every 78 seconds from 600 light-years away.
—Scott Tobias, Vulture, 7 Nov. 2025
But the cringe-comedy antics of the original NBC series landed far better in Season 3 than in Season 1, once audiences began to truly love the characters instead of just gawking at them.
—Kelly Lawler, USA Today, 3 Sep. 2025
It wasn’t created for superficial lust or leering, gawking eyes.
—Kaila Yu, Condé Nast Traveler, 19 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for gawking
Verb
-
Up on their hind legs, sitting around me, staring at me.—
Sabienna Bowman,
PEOPLE,
10 Apr. 2026
-
After staring at the dog for 90 seconds, Green went back into his apartment and then threw a cutting board at the dog.—
Tim Fang,
CBS News,
8 Apr. 2026
Verb
-
Days are spent barefoot, raising turnips, sitting out by the lake, gazing at the cattle.—
Miami Herald Archives,
Miami Herald,
5 Apr. 2026
-
Sifting through data from sun-gazing spacecraft, Battams’s project has found more than 5,000 so far.—
Meghan Bartels,
Scientific American,
3 Apr. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Gawking.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/gawking. Accessed 14 Apr. 2026.
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