gawk

gawk at (someone or something)

To stare at someone or something in surprise or stupefaction. We gawked at the firemen as they rushed into the burning building. I could only gawk at Mary when she told me she was pregnant.
See also: gawk
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

gawk at someone or something

to stare at someone or something, obviously and awkwardly. Why are you standing there, gawking at me? The tourists stood at the foot of the mountain and gawked at the top.
See also: gawk
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • gawk at
  • gawk at (someone or something)
  • gape
  • gape at
  • gape at (someone or something)
  • goggle at
  • goggle at (someone or something)
  • boggle at
  • boggle at (something)
  • stare at
References in periodicals archive
Deemed as one of the most picturesque events, tourists flock every year to gawk at the Northern Lights and Southern Lights.
Gawk said it will continue to purchase local data Centres as part of its plan to become one of the largest owners of data centers in the US.
Also, men are beginning to gawk at Iris' chest--she needs to buy a bra, as the kindly woman who lives upstairs points out, but her hardworking Mami has no time or money to take Iris shopping.
If the idea of that much physical activity in the middle of the desert turns you off, you can always keep the AC running and gawk at the red rocks from the comfort of your car.
On the subway I would gawk at the Rastafarians and the Hari Krishnas, enjoy their music, and revel in their differences--but I would never go near them.
They weren't as tall as the two humongous California ponderosas listed 'in this issue's National Register of Big Trees, but they were definitely trees to gawk at, their refreshing, see-through understories "scrubbed" clean by hundreds of years of natural wildfire.
"As soon as I saw it we all stopped for a minute and reacted to it and had a good gawk, luckily I was quick enough with my phone to get the video.
27 April 2015 - US-based voice broadcasting program developer Gawk Inc.
They're randomly collected tidbits that are worth a gawk or two, basically good for a couple shitters and chuckle.
He said: "I'd go into the garden to sketch and the others would come and gawk as if I was on Jackanory or something."
Occasionally, the mass would stop before a storefront and gawk at the window display.
But those who stop and gawk rarely give a thought to the feelings of those in the spotlight.
When the city promises us a skatepark and provides us with a prefab playground, caged in and on display like an exhibit in a museum for the rest of the town to gawk at, our only defense is to run to the fortress that is Thrasher.
But when I asked a few friends to accompany me to Arbus, nearly everyone declined: They had political repugnance for the objectifying photos; they thought it would be "depressing." To them, Arbus's photographic gaze seems inappropriately fascinated by human distortions, playing on spectacle, pandering to the unseemly desire to gawk at what might seem aberrant, to peer, to invade.
Excessively polite Vancouverites mostly just gawk, so stars walk around boldly in places they might fear to tread at home.