rubberneck
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Coined in the sense of "tourist" in the United States in the late 19th century. A favored Americanism of H.L. Mencken.
Noun[edit]
rubberneck (plural rubbernecks)
- Someone who engages in rubbernecking, or turning and staring.
- Synonym: rubbernecker
- 1951, J. D. Salinger, chapter 17, in The Catcher in the Rye, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, page 168:
- We must have looked gorgeous. And what made it worse, there was at least a hundred rubbernecks that didn't have anything better to do than stand around and watch everyone falling all over themselves.
- (US, obsolete) A tourist.
- Someone or something with a flexible neck.
- 1912, Edward C. Wood, Electrically Operated Bell for Submarine Signaling [1], US Patent 1186961, line 57:
- "A suitable washer B1 and rubberneck B2, both of well known description, are provided to form with clapper arm B3 a watertight joint..."
- '1972, Can Themba, The Will to Die, page 59:
- "Hi, rubberneck!' -- he clutched at her pear-like breast jutting from her sweater — 'how long did you think you'll duck me?'"
- 1912, Edward C. Wood, Electrically Operated Bell for Submarine Signaling [1], US Patent 1186961, line 57:
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
someone who engages in rubbernecking, or turning and staring — see also rubbernecker
|
tourist — see tourist
See also[edit]
Verb[edit]
rubberneck (third-person singular simple present rubbernecks, present participle rubbernecking, simple past and past participle rubbernecked)
- To watch by craning the neck (as though it were made of rubber), especially if the observer and observed are in motion relative to each other.
- The driver was so busy rubbernecking, trying to get a good view of the accident, that he was almost part of another accident.
- To cause (someone) to watch in fascinated horror, as if rubbernecking to see a roadside accident.
- 2023 July 6, Pamela Paul, “What’s the Story With Colleen Hoover?”, in The New York Times[2]:
- Hoover’s books go down like a T.M.I. Facebook confessional, rubbernecking you in from the first sentence. Certain patterns quickly emerge.
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
to watch by craning the neck