rubbernecking
Syllables: rub·ber·neck·ing/ˈɹʊbɚˌnɛkɪŋ/
rubbernecking noun: the act of slowing down while driving a vehicle, in order to see the scene of an accident. Also the present participle and gerund of rubberneck.
Noun
rubbernecking (uncountable)
- The act of slowing down while driving a vehicle, in order to see the scene of an accident.
- "The resulting wreckage blocks the entire southbound side of the Interstate, while the inevitable rubbernecking slows traffic on the northbound side to little more than the speed of a brisk walk."2004, Robert G. Ferrell, Tangent: A Novel, →ISBN, page 131
- Generally, any act of observation in a manner considered unduly overt or otherwise unseemly.
- The children had never been in such a large museum and their rubbernecking was rather amusing.
Also used as
rubbernecking is also the present participle and gerund of rubberneck.
Origin of rubbernecking
From rubber + neck + -ing.
Questions about rubbernecking
- What does rubbernecking mean?
- Rubbernecking means the act of slowing down while driving a vehicle, in order to see the scene of an accident.
- What part of speech is rubbernecking?
- Rubbernecking is a noun.
- How do you pronounce rubbernecking?
- Rubbernecking is pronounced /ˈɹʊbɚˌnɛkɪŋ/.
Words near rubbernecking in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: rubbernecking (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-rubbernecking.oga.
Cite this entry: “rubbernecking.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rubbernecking. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.