A double take is a second look because the first did not register. Do a double take, a comic double take, it made me double take.
It is a named piece of comic acting, where the delay between looking and reacting is the whole joke. In life it happens when something is so out of place that the eye rejects it first time.
1noundouble takeA second look because the first did not register.
“I did a double take when I saw my teacher dancing on a table at the wedding.”
double take is a look.
From take in the acting sense of a visible reaction, doubled.
Built from
From take (“a visible (facial) response to something”) as used in acting, especially in comedy.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Ways of Looking