ope

1. Midwestern USUSAn exclamation of surprise; oops.

   Ope! Sorry about that.

   2 more examples

   Ope, let me just squeeze past ya there.

   We're Midwesterners. We like long walks through frozen cornfields. Ope! Watch out!

   2024 January 27, Charlie Berens and Myles Montplaisir, We're Midwesterners

comparative more ope · superlative most ope

1. dialectalpoeticotherwise archaicOpen.First known use 13th c.

   On Sunday heaven's gate stands ope.

   [1633], George Herbert, edited by [Nicholas Ferrar], The Temple. Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel; and are to be sold by Francis Green, […], →OCLC

   2 more examples

   Arriving there, as did by chaunce befall, / He found the gate wyde ope […].

   1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, VI.6

   We are all weary — faint — set ope the doors — I will to bed! — To-morrow —

   1819, John Keats, Otho the Great, act 5, scene 5, verses 191-192

present singular third person opes · participle present oping · participle past oped · past oped

1. ambitransitivedialectalpoeticotherwise archaicTo open.

   Ere I ope his letter, / I pray you, tell me how my good friend doth.

   c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]

   3 more examples

   The hour's now come, the very minute bids thee ope thine ear; obey and be attentive.

   1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]

   There came into many a burgher's pate / A text which says that heaven's gate / Opes to the rich at as easy rate / As the needle's eye takes a camel in!

   1842, Robert Browning, The Pied Piper of Hamelin

   An order asserted itself, and the hoods on the furnaces were oped wide, and a final march was organized. The wails of the injured and the roars of the dead-on-the-march overwhelmed the tinny speakers in the cell, and they all watched as nearly one thousand people reduced themselves to a few frantic hundred in less than an hour, then settled into a sustained orgy of battery, rapine and rape with no end in sight but the total depopulation of the entire facility.

   2024 September 28, Harry Blank, “Not Ready for Prime Time”, in Deadlined, →ISBN, page 604

plural opes

1. West CountryAn alley or narrow passage (an opening between houses, buildings, etc).

   Tonkin's Ope

   2 more examples

   It formed part of the extensive network of opes across the city which used to carry dock workers down to the quay for work on the boats in the bustling Port of Truro.

   2018 October 4, Lee Trewhela, “The secrets of Truro’s hidden Carne’s Ope unveiled for the first time in 60 years”, in Cornwall Live

   Opes / A characteristic that Truro shares with other Cornish towns are the narrow passageways which often form shortcuts between streets. […] These include Roberts Ope, Tippet's Backlet (Tippet was the owner of a fulling mill), Coombe's Lane, Pearson's Ope, Tonkin's Ope, Swifty's Ope, Nalder's Court, Job's Court and Carne's Ope, although this last has now been blocked off by building extensions. Perhaps the most memorable is Squeeze Guts Alley (see separate entry).

   2021 June 15, John Husband, A-Z of Truro: Places-People-History, Amberley Publishing Limited, →ISBN

1. PhilippinesabbreviationclippingcolloquialslanguncountableClipping of operations, in terms of an organization.

plural OPEs

1. abbreviationinitialismchemistryInitialism of octylphenol ethoxylate.

   The remaining 20% of the market consists of octylphenol ethoxylates (OPE) and other lesser-known alkylphenols.

   2008, Uri Zoller, Paul Sosis, editors, Handbook of Detergents, Part F: Production (Surfactant Science Series), CRC Press, →ISBN, page 66