goggle

English

Etymology

From 14th century Middle English gogelen (“to roll (eyes), to look sideways”). Earlier source is unknown. The noun is attested from the 17th century. Compare Irish gog (“a nod, a slight motion”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɒɡəl/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɑɡəl/
• Rhymes: -ɒɡəl
• Hyphenation: gog‧gle
• Homophone: gargle (non-rhotic with father-bother merger)

Verb

goggle (third-person singular simple present goggles, present participle goggling, simple past and past participle goggled)

1. To stare (at something) with wide eyes.
   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “IV, XII, AND XV”, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

     [...] she frowned a displeased frown and told me for heaven's sake to stop goggling like a dead halibut. [...] She left me fogged and groping for the inner meaning, and I could see from Aunt Dahlia's goggling eyes that the basic idea hadn't got across with her either. [...] I didn't want to be hampered by an audience. When you're pushing someone into a lake, nothing embarrasses you more than having the front seats filled up with goggling spectators.

   • 2021 December 7, Jesse Hassenger, “Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence cope with disaster in the despairing satire Don’t Look Up”, in AV Club‎^[1]:

     the rational pleas of astronomer Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and grad student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) for the public to trust science and understand the seriousness of the coming disaster will sound uncomfortably familiar to anyone who has goggled in disbelief at COVID and/or vaccine denialism.

2. To roll the eyes.
   • 1662, [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge: University Press, 1905, →OCLC, page 108:

     Inflam’d all over with Disgrace, / To be seen by her in such a Place; / Which made him hang his Head, and scoul, / And wink, and goggle like an Owl

Derived terms

• agoggle

Translations

stare with wide eyes

• Bulgarian: пуля се (pulja se)
• Finnish: toljottaa, töllistellä
• German: glotzen (de)
• Romanian: holba (ro)
• Russian: тара́щить (ru) (taráščitʹ) глаза́ (ru) (glazá), тара́щиться (ru) (taráščitʹsja)

Noun

goggle (plural goggles)

1. A wide-eyed stare or affected rolling of the eye.

   Come and have a goggle at Fauzia’s new car!

2. (in the plural) A pair of protective eyeglasses.

Derived terms

• beer goggles
• begoggled
• goggle box
• goggle-eye
• goggle-eyed
• goggle-eyed plover
• love goggles

 

Translations

a wide-eyed stare

• Bulgarian: пулене n (pulene)
• Finnish: toljotus (fi), töllistely (fi)

a pair of protective eyeglasses — see goggles

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “goggle”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• “Lexical Investigations: Goggle”, in Dictionary.com, 2020