goggle

Can be confused: goggle, Google, googol.

Word Story
Try searching the Internet for goggle and you will most likely be asked, “Did you mean google?” Etymologists won’t be much more help, as they are as stumped by goggle’s origins as Google is by its spelling. What we do know about it is that it first shows up in the late 14th century, in the form of the word gogelen, a Middle English word with the meanings “to turn the eyes from one side to the other, to look sideways, squint,” and developed from there.
The first senses of goggle dealt with the movement of the eyes—quite literally the rolling or bulging of eyes. It was not until the early 18th century that goggle took on meanings that extended beyond the eyeball (though not very far beyond). In the early 1700s, speakers of English used the plural goggles to refer to large, protective eye coverings. As the use of cars became more widespread in the early 20th century, the demand for driving goggles increased. Though only vintage car enthusiasts have a need for those today, safety goggles can commonly be found in any high school chemistry class that follows standard safety codes.
While those types of goggles are designed to protect, a new kind of goggles, which do nothing to protect the wearer—beer goggles—surfaced in English in the late 1980s. This slang term for the metaphorical goggles an extremely drunk person “wears,” with the effect of diminishing their judgment, is still widely used today. Perhaps beer goggles protect wearers in a way; they do, after all, offer the wearer the protection of reduced accountability.