rubberneck

Meanings

1. Someone who engages in rubbernecking, or turning and staring.
2. A tourist.
3. Someone or something with a flexible neck.

1. To watch by craning the neck (as though it were made of rubber), especially if the observer and observed are in motion relative to each other.
2. To cause (someone) to watch in fascinated horror, as if rubbernecking to see a roadside accident.

Etymology

From rubber + neck. Coined in the sense of "tourist" in the United States in the late 19th century. A favored Americanism of H.L. Mencken.