mopery with intent to gawk

9.9

An act of standing in public and staring at people without purpose

noun
/ˈmoʊpəri wɪð ɪnˈtɛnt tu ɡɔk/

Informal

: conducta ridícula por mirar

Several pranksters were charged with mopery with intent to gawk during the street parade.

Examples

Her defense argued that mopery with intent to gawk was not a real offense under any reasonable law.
The officer jokingly accused him of mopery with intent to gawk outside the courthouse.
Don't engage in mopery with intent to gawk during the meeting!
His mopery with intent to gawk at the parade was embarrassing.
During the festival, the crowd's mopery with intent to gawk quickly turned into a lively party.
The teacher warned the students against mopery with intent to gawk while they were supposed to be studying.
His mopery with intent to gawk at the street performers drew scorn from the passersby.

Synonyms

mopery

vsmopery with intent to gawk

Slang

1 9.9

A joking word for a small, silly offense like standing around doing nothing

is specifically about inappropriate staring or loitering rather than a general trivial offense

mopery with intent

vsmopery with intent to gawk

Informal

9.9

A joking name for foolish, aimless behavior

focuses on inappropriate staring or loitering rather than general aimlessness

Antonyms

focus

∞ 3.5

Close attention to one subject or activity

diligence

62 4.1

Careful, steady work that helps you reach a goal

Surface Forms

mopery with intent to gawk singular

mopery with intents to gawk plural

Morphology

mopery + with + intent + to + gawk

Each part of the phrase composes transparently: 'mopery' (a trivial loitering/offence) + the legal-purpose clause 'with intent to gawk' (with the aim of staring) yields a clear meaning of loitering/stupid behaviour with the purpose of staring. The syntactic pattern 'with intent to + verb' is a productive, cross-linguistically familiar way to express purpose, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents can readily infer the overall sense.

Etymology

Mopery with intent to gawk is a joking, legal-sounding phrase people made to mock someone who was wandering around and staring; one popular story says police or pranksters invented it to sound like a real crime. The part mopery suggests aimless walking and gawk means to stare, so the phrase now humorously describes 'idle behavior' or 'inappropriate staring'.