gape
/ɡeɪp
/verb [no object]
1Be or become wide open: [with complement]: a carpet bag gaped open by her feet...
- If you're really lucky a Central Line train will already be standing there waiting with its doors gaping open.
- In spite of widespread statutory reform, legal loopholes gaped wide open at midcentury.
- A huge hole gaped in the roof, and a conservatory was shattered.
Synonyms
open wide, open up, yawn;
part, crack, split
1.1Stare with one’s mouth open wide in amazement or wonder: he gaped at Sharp in silence...
- Her bluish eyes were wide with shock as her mouth gaped at the sight of me.
- We all gasped putting our hands over our mouths as we gaped at the scene in front of us.
- They gaped at him, their mouths slightly open, then simultaneously bolted for the basement door to the outside.
Synonyms
stare, stare open-mouthed, stare in wonder, gawk, goggle, gaze, ogle, look fixedly, look vacantly
informal rubberneck
British informal gawp
noun
1A wide opening: a wide gape of the jaws...
- But through a wide gape in-between the drapes, the Tokyo moon shone in, its light washing over the whole apartment and bathing it in an ivory glow.
- The anterior, probably downwards-orientated, part of shell has a gape from which the foot could probably emerged.
- A wind blew in from the open gape that was my window and I shivered.
1.1An open-mouthed stare: she climbed into her sports car to the gapes of passers-by...
- His face relaxes, his eyes squint, his jaw drops, and he suddenly becomes the everyman, a guy with an open-mouthed gape trying to figure out the world.
- Devon pulled me down the stairs, getting us a few stares and gapes as ‘the’ Devon was making his entrance without a shirt on.
- The perch has the large eye and wide gape of an active hunter.
1.2A widely open mouth or beak: juvenile birds with yellow gapes...
- Nestlings give typical begging calls when parents visit their nest, while also raising their heads and widely opening their yellow to deep-orange gapes.
- It also has a tiny beak with a large gape, surrounded by stiff feathers called rictal bristles, which help the bird catch its aerial prey.
- In breeding plumage, yellow gape and chestnut face and neck.
1.3 (the gapes) A disease of birds with gaping of the mouth as a symptom, caused by infestation with gapeworm.One brood was cooped out of doors on the ground and every chick died of the gapes in less than a month.
Origin
Middle English: from Old Norse gapa; related to gap.