GAPING • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Gaping

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/gˈeɪpɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Gape v. i. (past & past part. gaped; pres. part. gaping)

To open the mouth wide; as:

(a)

Expressing a desire for food; as, young birds gape.

(b)

Indicating sleepiness or indifference; to yawn. "She stretches, gapes, unglues her eyes, And asks if it be time to rise."

(c)

Showing unselfconsciousness in surprise, astonishment, expectation, etc. "With gaping wonderment had stared aghast."

(d)

Manifesting a desire to injure, devour, or overcome. "They have gaped upon me with their mouth."

To open or part widely; to exhibit a gap, fissure, or hiatus. "May that ground gape and swallow me alive!"

To long, wait eagerly, or cry aloud for something; with for, after, or at. "The hungry grave for her due tribute gapes."

Synonyms: To gaze; stare; yawn. See Gaze.

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Etymology of 'Gaping'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Gaping" Quotes from Famous Books

... the side of the bed, where she had been sitting, and went cautiously around that gaping trap door to her chamber door, when she missed the key, and suddenly remembered that it had been in Black Donald's pocket when he fell. A shudder thrilled her frame at the ...

— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... bow too tight, and let fly with undue violence. These hit the true direction, but their shafts do not lodge in the mark; their impetus carries them right through the soul, and they pass on their way, leaving only a gaping wound behind them. Others make the contrary mistake: their bows are too slack, and their shafts never reach their destination; as often as not their force is spent at half distance, and they drop to earth. Or if they reach the mark, they do but graze its surface; ...

— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... the Cortlandt Street ferry and walked up Broadway, wondering what Helen would say if I called before breakfast. I could scarcely wait. I stopped in front of St. Paul's Church, gaping up at a twenty-six story building opposite; a monstrous shaft with a gouge out of its south side as if lightning had rived off a sliver. I went over to it and saw that I had come to Ann Street, where Barnum's museum used to stand. The Post Office, the City ...

— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... blue water on a sunlit ceiling, hovered and hung above the ugly shabbiness of the engines and trucks, the rails with scattered pieces of paper here and there, the iron arms that supported the vast glass roof, the hideous funnel that hung with its gaping mouth above the water-tank. The faint blue light was the spring evening—the spring evening that, encouraged by God knows what brave illusion, had penetrated even these desperate fastnesses. A little breeze accompanied it and the dirty pieces of paper blew to and fro; then suddenly a shaft ...

— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... shall we say of the plausible and well-dressed charlatans of our own time, who trade in false pretences, like Nicholas Knapp of old, but without any fear of being fined or whipped; or of the many follies and inanities, imposing on the credulous part of the community, each of them gaping with eager, open mouth for a gratuitous advertisement by the mention of its foolish name in any ...

— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

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