Etymology From Middle English goke, gowke, from Old Norse gaukr (“cuckoo”), from Proto-Germanic *gaukaz (“cuckoo”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰegʰuǵʰ- (“cuckoo”).
"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:
2 more examples
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:
Etymology From Middle English goke, gowke, from Old Norse gaukr (“cuckoo”), from Proto-Germanic *gaukaz (“cuckoo”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰegʰuǵʰ- (“cuckoo”).
1
To make foolish; to stupefy.
look how the man stands as he were gowk'd1632 (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, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
gowk
noun
[ˈɡæʊ̯ˀk]
Etymology Origin uncertain. Likely from Middle English coke, colk (“the core or heart of an apple or onion, pith”), from Old English *colc (“the gullet, esophagus; pit of the stomach; trench, pit, gully”), from Proto-West Germanic *kolk, from Proto-Germanic *kulkaz, *kulukaz (“gullet”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷel- (“to devour, swallow, gulp; throat, gullet”). Possibly a doublet of coke.