subs. (colloquial).—An awkward booby; a fool. ‘Now SQUIRE GAWKY’—a challenge to a clumsy lout. For synonyms, see BUFFLE and CABBAGE-HEAD.

1

  d. 1758.  RAMSAY, The Auld Man’s Best Argument [Works, ii. 285].

        Or gentle born ye be; but youth,
  In love you’re but a GAWKY.

2

  1777.  SHERIDAN, The School for Scandal, Act ii., Sc. 2. Crab. Yes, and she is a curious being to pretend to be censorious—an awkward GAWKY, without any one good point under heaven.

3

  1825.  NEAL, Brother Jonathan, ii., ch. 18. Great, long, slab-sided GAWKEYS from the country.

4

  1876.  C. H. WALL, trans. Molière, ii., 197. Our big GAWKY of a viscount.

5

  Adj. (colloquial).—Lanky; awkward; stupid.

6

  1759.  J. TOWNLEY, High Life below Stairs, i., 1. Under the form of a GAWKY country boy, I will be an eye-witness of my servants’ behaviour.

7

  1855.  THACKERAY, The Newcomes, ch. xlviii. Even for his cousin Samuel Newcome, a GAWKY youth with an eruptive countenance, Barnes had appropriate words of conversation.

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