overwordExplorer
ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

gowk.

A cuckoo.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ɡaʊk/
  1. A cuckoo.

    Northern-England · Scotland
  2. A fool.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English goke, gowke, from Old Norse gaukr (“cuckoo”), from Proto-Germanic *gaukaz (“cuckoo”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰegʰuǵʰ- (“cuckoo”).

verb/ɡaʊk/
  1. To make foolish; to stupefy.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English goke, gowke, from Old Norse gaukr (“cuckoo”), from Proto-Germanic *gaukaz (“cuckoo”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰegʰuǵʰ- (“cuckoo”).

noun/ɡaʊk/[ˈɡæʊ̯ˀk]
  1. An apple core.

    Geordie
  2. The central part of any thing; pith; core.

    Geordie · obsolete
  3. The hard centre of a boil or sore.

    dialectal
  4. The yolk of an egg.

    dialectal
  5. The inner part of a haystack.

    dialectal
Where this word comes from

Origin uncertain. Likely from Middle English coke, colk (“the core or heart of an apple or onion, pith”), from Old English *colc (“the gullet, esophagus; pit of the stomach; trench, pit, gully”), from Proto-West Germanic *kolk, from Proto-Germanic *kulkaz, *kulukaz (“gullet”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷel- (“to devour, swallow, gulp; throat, gullet”). Possibly a doublet of coke.

verb
  1. To retch; vomit.

    dialectal
Where this word comes from

Compare Norwegian Nynorsk gulka (“to burp, belch”). Compare also Scots cowk (“to strain, retch”), Dutch kolken (“to belch”), German kolken (“to gulp”), dialectal German kölken, kolksen (“to vomit”), Danish kulke (“to gulp”).

FROM WORD TO NAME

Try it on your idea.

gowk has 4 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.

gowk studiogowk workshello, gowk

These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.

Explore the name generator

A word with a source.

Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.