The word may have arisen from words in Lincolnshire dialect: "gawn" and "gooze", both meaning to stare or gape. It might be presumed that such an expression would date from the nineteenth century, when canals were at their peak, but the word is only recorded from the end of that century or the early twentieth. It was given wider use by the late L. T. C. Rolt, who used it in his book about canal life, "Narrow Boat", in 1944. A "gawn" is also a small ship of lading, such as a working-narrowboat.