gaze

present singular third person gazes · participle present gazing · participle past gazed · past gazed

1. intransitiveTo stare intently or earnestly.

   They gazed at the stars for hours.

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   Why stand ye gazing up into heaven?

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Acts 1:11

   Gerty MacDowell who was seated near her companions, lost in thought, gazing far away into the distance was, in very truth, as fair a specimen of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 13]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC

   She just sat there very straight, gazing across the moon-washed garden.

   1936, F.J. Thwaites, The Redemption, Sydney: H. John Edwards Publishing, published 1940, page 64

   In fact, for Antonioni this gazing is probably the most fundamental of all cognitive activities[.]

   1998, Michelangelo Antonioni, Unfinished Business: Screenplays, Scenerios, and Ideas, page xv

2. poetictransitiveTo stare at.

   Strait toward Heav'n my wondring Eyes I turnd, / And gaz'd a while the ample Skie

   1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC

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   I searched for form and land For years and years I roamed I gazed a gazeless stare.

   1970, David Bowie, The Man Who Sold the World

plural gazes

1. A fixed look; a look of eagerness, wonder, or admiration; a continued look of attention.

   Captain Edward Carlisle, soldier as he was, martinet as he was, felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her steady gaze, her alluring smile; he could not tell what this prisoner might do.

   1910, Emerson Hough, “A Lady in Company”, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

   Synonyms: regard

2. archaicThe object gazed on.

   Made of my Enemies the ſcorn and gaze;

   1671, John Milton, “Samson Agonistes, […].”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 11

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   Those howers that with gentle worke did frame / The louely gaze where euery eye doth dwell.

   1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 5”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC

3. human sciencesIn Lacanian psychoanalysis, the relationship of the subject with the desire to look and awareness that one can be viewed.

   She counters the tendency to focus on critical strategies of resisting the male gaze, raising the issue of the female spectator.

   2003, Amelia Jones, The feminism and visual culture reader, page 35

4. in compoundsusuallymediaThe framework in which a subject is presented, determined by the biases of the creator and/or audience.

   The American panorama is indicative of the nation's expansion westward and an example of the American gaze.

   2005, Eva Zetterberg Pettersson, The Old World Journey: National Identity in Four American Novels from 1960 to 1973

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   hooks is right to argue that within this culture the ethnographic conceit of a neutral gaze will always be a white gaze, an unmarked white gaze, one which passes its own perspective off as the omniscient

   1993, Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "sex"

5. collectiveA group of raccoons.

   A Poulsbo woman who found herself surrounded by a gaze of raccoons Monday has regained her home.

   2024 October 10, Julia Dallas, “WDFW: Gaze of raccoons have dispersed after Poulsbo woman stopped feeding them”, in My Northwest, archived from the original on 30 Jul 2026

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   my small gaze of raccoons lived in a large maple tree that we shared with four elderly chipmunks and seven squirrels from three different generations of the same family

   2021, Angela Misri, Trip of the Dead, DCB

   Even as the world limps back to normal, some weird wildlife stuff is going on–like a gaze of aggressive raccoons taking over Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.

   2020 October 6, Cormick Evans, “Gaze of Raccoons Takes Over Golden Gate Park”, in Oddee, archived from the original on 30 Jul 2026