Look at, glance at, as in Will you take a gander at that woman's red hair! This slangy

idiom, dating from the early 1900s, presumably came from the verb gander, meaning “stretch one's neck to see,” possibly alluding to the long neck of the male goose.

Is take a gander slang?

Besides being the proper name for a male goose and a slang word for silly man, the word gander also shows up in the idiom "take a gander." The slang sense of gander comes from the meaning recorded in 1886, to take a long look by craning one's neck like a goose, or wander foolishly (again, like a goose).

Why is take a gander?

“Gander”, meaning “male goose”, derives from the Old English “gandra”, which ultimately comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *ghans-, meaning “goose”. ... So, basically, geese appear to be a bunch of rubberneckers. Thus, to “take a gander” meant to “stretch your neck and see”, as a long-necked goose would.