gowks

Craigengelt drew his cutlass an inch or two, and then returned it with violence into the scabbard — “Because there is a deeper stake to be played for than the lives of twenty harebrained gowks like you.”

The Bride of Lammermoor 2008

For some time the woman was too much occupied with her task to notice his presence, but when her labour was rewarded by a faint sigh, and a slightly-drawn breath parted the pale lips, she heard a grunt of satisfaction behind her; and turning her head, she exclaimed, "What gowks men are, to be sure."

A Sailor's Lass Emma Leslie

There's them that's gowks enough to think ye're seein 'Sichts, when it's neither mair nor less than he'rt-sick laziness, and I was ance ane o' them mysel '.

Doom Castle Neil Munro

A pair of gowks, were we not, in that darkening wood, quarrelling on an issue as flimsy as a spider's web, but who will say it was not human nature?

John Splendid The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn Neil Munro

"My saul," said the king, "ye shall gang roun 'to yere place again: these country gowks mauna ken the riddle without the labour."

Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 Various

Plainly and crisply he had stated that he was leaving the country because the music-hall stage was given over to alien gowks.

The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England A Tale of the Great Invasion 1928

Prince were gowks, who would do well to haud their blether.

The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England A Tale of the Great Invasion 1928

"There's ower mony gowks in the land for a 'the mills to grind," said

Masters of the Guild L. Lamprey 1910

But puir simple fowk like oorsel's 'ill hae no need to hing down the heid an' luik like gowks 'at disna ken mainners.

Sir Gibbie George MacDonald 1864

I'm sair forfaughten this mony a year wi 'watching the puir gowks, trying to do God's wark wi' the deevil's tools.

Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet An Autobiography Charles Kingsley 1847