gape

present singular third person gapes · participle present gaping · participle past gaped · past gaped

1. intransitiveTo open the mouth wide, especially involuntarily, as in a yawn, anger, or surprise.

   1723, Jonathan Swift, The Journal of a Modern Lady, 1810, Samuel Johnson, The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper, Volume 11, page 467, She stretches, gapes, unglues her eyes, / And asks if it be time to rise;

   1 more example

   Eustace gaped at him in amazement. When his urbanity dropped away from him, as now, he had an innocence of expression which was almost infantile. It was as if the world had never touched him at all.

   1963, Margery Allingham, chapter IX, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC

2. intransitiveTo stare in wonder.

   The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play.

   1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter I, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC, page 5

   2 more examples

   Home I vvould go, / But that my Dores are hatefull to my eyes. / Fill'd and damm'd up vvith gaping Creditors, / VVatchfull as Fovvlers vvhen their Game vvill ſpring; […]

   1682, Thomas Otway, Venice Preserv’d, or, A Plot Discover’d. A Tragedy. […], London: […] Jos[eph] Hindmarsh […], →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 4

   Brother Francine demands stronger rules, damns the needs of the body, and then sneaks off to a public pool to gape obscenely at the casually exposed flesh.

   1982 February 13, Michael Bronski, “Boys from Catholic School”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 29, page 7

3. intransitiveTo open wide; to display a gap.

   The wound was gaping open and losing too much blood.

   3 more examples

   May that ground gape, and swallow me alive, / Where I shall kneel to him who slew my father!

   c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]

   Nor is he deterr'd from the belief of the perpetual flying of the Manucodiata, by the gaping of the feathers of her wings, (which seem thereby less fit to sustain her body) but further makes the narration probable by what he has observed in Kites hovering in the Aire, as he saith, for a whole hour together without any flapping of their wings or changing place.

   1653, Henry More, An Antidote against Atheisme, or An Appeal to the Natural Faculties of the Minde of Man, whether There Be Not a God, London: […] Roger Daniel, […], →OCLC

   The hungry grave for her due tribute gapes:

   a. 1699, John Denham, Cato Major, Of Old Age: A Poem, published 1710, page 25

4. intransitiveTo open the passage to the vomeronasal organ, analogous to the flehming in other animals.
5. lifestyleTo depict a dilated anal or vaginal cavity upon penetrative sexual activity.

plural gapes

1. countableuncommonuncountableAn act of gaping; a yawn.

   Now a gen'ral gape goes round, And vapours cloud each sleepy head.

   1745, Richard Graves, Euphrosyne

2. countableuncountableA large opening.
3. uncountableA disease in poultry caused by gapeworm in the windpipe, a symptom of which is frequent gaping.
4. countableuncountableThe width of an opening.
5. countableuncountablebiologyThe maximum opening of the mouth (of a bird, fish, etc.) when it is open.