gander

plural ganders

1. A male goose.

   Old Mother Goose / When she wanted to wander / Would ride through the air / On a very fine gander.

   1916, Blanche Fisher Wright, The Original Mother Goose

   2 more examples

   Ganders and geese are at their best for stock from two to ten years old. They live to a great age—it is stated to thirty or more years—but after ten years they cannot be reckoned upon as reliable assets on a farm. Two years old is the best age to mate them, making up pens of a gander and two or three geese at the New Year. It is difficult sometimes to distinguish ganders from geese. A practical man is, however, rarely mistaken.

   1902, Lewis Wright, “Geese and Swans”, in The New Book of Poultry […], London; […]: Cassell and Company, Limited, page 560, column 1

   Marta's gander was a magnificent snow-white bird: the object of terror to foxes, children and dogs. She had reared him as a gosling; and whenever he approached, he would let fly a low contented burble and sidle his neck around her thighs.

   1988, Bruce Chatwin, Utz, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN; republished London: Vintage Books, 2005, →ISBN, page 50

2. A fool, simpleton.
3. informalA glance, look.

   Have a gander at what he’s written.

   2 more examples

   I took a gander and she seemed so familiar.

   As well as the church and its sexton, the market house is worth a gander, while the hop fields and orchards are "reminding one of Kent", for we are in another "Garden of England".

   2022 August 24, Stephen Roberts, “Bradshaw's Britain: the Cotswold Line: Ledbury”, in RAIL, number 964, page 61

   Synonyms: butcher's, butcher's hook

4. USA man living apart from his wife.

present singular third person ganders · participle present gandering · participle past gandered · past gandered

1. dialectalintransitiveto ramble, wander

1. A surname.
2. A town in Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador.