Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A male goose.
  • noun Informal A look or glance.
  • noun Informal A simpleton; a ninny.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The male of the goose.
  • To go leisurely; linger; walk slowly or vaguely.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The male of any species of goose.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A male goose.
  • noun A fool, simpleton
  • noun slang A glance, look.
  • verb dialect (intransitive) ramble, wander

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun mature male goose

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English gandra; see ghans- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

Comments

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  • I particularly like it as a verb. As in "take a gander" at something.

    July 2, 2007

  • NOUN: 1. Informal. One deficient in judgment and good sense: ass, fool, idiot, imbecile, jackass, mooncalf, moron, nincompoop, ninny, nitwit, simple, simpleton, softhead, tomfool. Informal: dope, goose. Slang: cretin, ding-dong, dip, goof, jerk, nerd, schmo, schmuck, turkey. See ABILITY. 2. Informal. A quick look: blush, glance, glimpse, peek, peep. See SEE.

    July 2, 2007

  • I also enjoy the verb form, and that was what I had in mind when I listed it. I like the implicit analogy to a literal gander.

    As for the sense of fool, idiot, etc., I suppose the female counterpart is a silly goose. Or perhaps I should say that *was* the female counterpart; I guess the term is now spread more equitably between the sexes.

    July 2, 2007

  • apparently "Hamsa" means gander!

    April 3, 2008

  • british slang; look. "Would you take a gander at what she's wearing?"

    June 13, 2009

  • Chiefly American according to OED2.

    June 13, 2009

  • arby, slumry: it's not a verb. In the expression 'take a gander' it's a noun. It's modified by a determiner 'a', making the noun phrase 'a gander', which is the object of the transitive verb 'take'. If it was a verb, you'd say *'Mary gandered John', rather than 'Mary took a gander at John'.

    June 14, 2009