gander

From Middle English gandre, from Old English gandra, ganra (“gander”), from Proto-West Germanic *ganʀō, from Proto-Germanic *ganzô (“gander”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰh₂éns (“goose”).

This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term. How did senses 3 and 4 develop?

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɡæn.də(ɹ)/

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• Rhymes: -ændə(ɹ)

gander (plural ganders)

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

     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.

   • 1916, Blanche Fisher Wright, The Original Mother Goose:

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

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

     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.

2. A fool, simpleton.
3. (informal) A glance, look.

   Have a gander at what he’s written.

   I took a gander and she seemed so familiar.

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

     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".

4. (US) A man living apart from his wife.

• (slang, look): butcher's, butcher's hook (Cockney rhyming slang for "look")

• ganderism
• gander month
• gander party
• Michigander
• take a gander
• what's good for the goose is good for the gander
• what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander

gander (third-person singular simple present ganders, present participle gandering, simple past and past participle gandered)

1. (dialect, intransitive) ramble, wander

• Garden, danger, garden, grande, graned, nadger, ranged

Most likely from English gander or Low German gander, ganner. Both are possibly formed from gans (“goose”) in an analogous way as kater (“male cat”) from kat (“(female) cat”) and doffer (“male dove”) from duif (“(female) dove”).

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gander m (plural ganders, diminutive gandertje n)

1. gander, male goose

   Synonyms: ganzerik, gent, mannetjesgans

• dragen