take a gander
"take-a-gander" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“take a gander” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To take a look; to check or examine.
Corpus desk
Index EN-take-a-gander · take a gander · English
take a gander · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 13 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "T" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | take a gander |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “take a gander” in English
Rare enough to double-check
take a gander is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To take a look; to check or examine.".
take a gander has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: First recorded in 1887, based on craning the neck like a goose. The correct English form is take a gander, spelled T-A-K-E- -A- -G-A-N-D-E-R.
Definition
- 1To take a look; to check or examine.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how take a gander appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
They all went downtown to take a gander at the new shops that had opened there.
Etymology
First recorded in 1887, based on craning the neck like a goose.
Synonyms
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.