Lost Word Of The Day (61)

Stuck for a word to describe someone who seemingly stands still for a long time with a long vacant stare? Well, try gongoozler, defined in Bradshaw’s Canals and Navigable Rivers of England and Wales (1904) as “an idle and inquisitive person who stands staring for prolonged periods at anything out of the common”. The word is thought to have been derived from the duplication of two similar verbs from Lincolnshire dialect, to gawn meaning to yawn, gape and to stare vacantly and curiously and to goose meaning to stare aimlessly or gape.

Not all gongoozlers were harmless, though. An article in the Hampshire Advertiser for July 13, 1907, reported that in London “nearly all the bridges are lined with curious idlers, known as gongoozlers, and the habits of these persons are not nice. They insult the bargees or anyone on the boat, throwing stones or sticks and acting in other objectionable ways as the boats pass, knowing no revenge can be taken”.

There was clearly a mean streak in them gongoozlers.