rubbernecker

plural rubberneckers · alternative rubber-necker

1. A person who rubbernecks; someone who cranes their neck as though it were made of rubber to see something (such as a tourist attraction) or to watch an event (such as an accident); a rubberneck.

   The minor accident caused a traffic jam as rubberneckers slowed down to get a good view of the battered cars.

   5 more examples

   Gentlemen will leave their pocket flasks with the captain, and will limit themselves to two bunches of cigarettes each. Rubber neckers will be executed without trial. Glasses will be needed to protect the eyes from the dust, and you MUST "Keep off the grass."

   1898, The Michigan School Moderator, volume 18, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Michigan School Moderator, →OCLC, page 30, column 3

   I suppose that fellow was a rubber-necker, and got killed peeping over the trenches.

   1899, Stephen Bonsal, “Under the Mango-tree”, in The Fight for Santiago: The Story of the Soldier in the Cuban Campaign, from Tampa to the Surrender, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday & McClure Co., →OCLC, page 283

   He is a great "rubber-necker." What he don't see aint worth looking at.

   1899 March 25, “A Bobbin Boy’s Essay on His Boss”, in Jos[eph] M. Wade, editor, Fibre and Fabric: A Record of American Textile Industries in the Cotton and Woolen Trade, volume XXIX, number 734, Boston, Mass.: Jos. M. Wade, →OCLC, page 63, column 2

   We are taught the importance of hygiene of the mouth, of the body, and of the hair, but little concerning the nose, which is the "rubber-necker" which is expected to discover any laxity of cleanliness of other parts of the body or the air around us.

   1899 November 3, W. Cheatham, “Hygiene of the Nose”, in H. A. Cottell, M. F. Coomes, editors, The American Practitioner and News, volume XXVIII, number 12, Louisville, Ky.: John P. Morton & Company, published 15 December 1899, →OCLC, page 441

   "The train's whistle was blowin' the whole time and, Lord, it sounded like a bomb had went^([sic]) off when they hit," said Patty Fay McNair, a waitress at the Torch, to a rubbernecker who'd asked if she'd seen what happened.

   1991, Barry Gifford, “Consuelo’s Kiss”, in Sailor’s Holiday: The Wild Life of Sailor and Lula, New York, N.Y.: Random House, →ISBN; quoted in Thomas A. McCarthy, editor, The Rooster Trapped in the Reptile Room: A Barry Gifford Reader, New York, N.Y.; Toronto, Ont.: Seven Stories Press, 2003, →ISBN, page 256

   Synonyms: gaper, gawker, gawper, onlooker, spectator, starer