rubberneck

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
20
Words With Friends
25
Letters
10
Pronunciation
/ˈɹʌbɚˌnɛk/

Definition of rubberneck

5 senses · 2 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. Someone who engages in rubbernecking, or turning and staring.
    “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.”
See all 5 definitions

noun

  1. Someone who engages in rubbernecking, or turning and staring.
    “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.”
  2. (US, obsolete)A tourist.
  3. Someone or something with a flexible neck.
    “A suitable washer B1 and rubberneck B2, both of well known description, are provided to form with clapper arm B3 a watertight joint...”
    ““‘Hi, rubberneck!’ — he clutched at her pear-like breast jutting from her sweater — ‘how long did you think you'll duck me?’””

verb

  1. 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.”
  2. To cause (someone) to watch in fascinated horror, as if rubbernecking to see a roadside accident.
    “Hoover’s books go down like a T.M.I. Facebook confessional, rubbernecking you in from the first sentence. Certain patterns quickly emerge.”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

From rubber + neck. Coined in the sense of "tourist" in the United States in the late 19th century. A favored Americanism of H.L. Mencken.

Hooks

1 extension · 1 back

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