gongoozler

Prolagus HH, that's a level of complexity I can't deal with. My brain is melting. Nov 30, 2011

hernesheir This word's pattern of consonants and vowels, cvccvvccvc, is a palindrome. Nov 30, 2011

ravendesk Gongoozling can actually get you a lot in life. I think the definition is almost as funny as the word. Sep 20, 2011

bilby It's a bit disconcerting to see a word that's unusual and think, "hey, that's unusual, I need to check that out", then come to the page and find this definition. May 25, 2011

jmjarmstrong JM aspires to be the best gongoozler possible. Oct 4, 2009

thedayhascome /gon GOOZ ler/ n · A dimwit who stares at unusual things. Aug 7, 2008

whichbe An idle spectator. This is one of the odder words in the English lexicon and not only because of its strange appearance. It suddenly started to become popular in Britain from about 1970 onwards, but with very little previous recorded history attached to it. It is closely linked with canal life, and even now it seems to be a word especially favoured by those who like to mess about on narrow waterways. It is said to have been a bit of canal workers’ slang, originally for a person who stood on the towpath idly watching activity. You might expect that it would date from the heyday of the canals in the early part of the nineteenth century, but it is actually only recorded from the end of that century or the early twentieth. It was given wider public notice by the late L T C Rolt, who used it in his book about canal life, Narrow Boat, in 1944. It is said to derive from a couple of words in Lincolnshire dialect: gawn and gooze, both meaning to stare or gape. However, nobody seems too clear about this.
(from World Wide Words) May 20, 2008