Definition of "gowk"

gowk¹

/ɡaʊk/

noun
plural gowks
1. (Northern England, Scotland) A cuckoo.
2. A fool.
  Quotations
  "Ill-fard, crazy, crack-brained gowk, that she is!" exclaimed the housekeeper.
  1816, Sir Walter Scott, chapter 8, in Old Mortality
  "What does it look like?" "Like...like..." Catweazle made boulder-like gestures in the air, "like a wogle-stone, thou gowk."
  1971, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 83
  God has sent me gowks for secretaries.
  1976, Robert Nye, Falstaff
  `You daft great gowk, puttin' yerself in the way of harm after all this time out of a war.'
  2016, Kerry Greenwood, Murder and Mendelssohn, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 303
verb
third-person singular simple present gowks, present participle gowking, simple past and past participle gowked
1. To make foolish; to stupefy.
  Quotations
  look how the man stands as he were gowk'd
  1632 (first performance), Benjamin Jonson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “The Magnetick Lady: Or, Humors Reconcil’d. A Comedy […]”, in The Workes of Benjamin Jonson. The Second Volume. […] (Second Folio), London: […] Richard Meighen, published 1640

gowk²

/ɡaʊk/

noun
plural gowks
1. (Geordie) An apple core.
2. (Geordie, obsolete) The central part of any thing; pith; core.
3. (dialectal) The hard centre of a boil or sore.
4. (dialectal) The yolk of an egg.
5. (dialectal) The inner part of a haystack.

gowk³

verb
third-person singular simple present gowks, present participle gowking, simple past and past participle gowked
1. (dialectal) To strain; vomit.