gape.
To open the mouth wide, especially involuntarily, as in a yawn, anger, or surprise.
Meaning & usage
To open the mouth wide, especially involuntarily, as in a yawn, anger, or surprise.
To stare in wonder.
To open wide; to display a gap.
The wound was gaping open and losing too much blood.
To open the passage to the vomeronasal organ, analogous to the flehming in other animals.
To depict a dilated anal or vaginal cavity upon penetrative sexual activity.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English gapen, from Old Norse gapa (“to gape”) (compare Swedish gapa, Danish gabe), from Proto-Germanic *gapōną (descendants Middle English geapen, Dutch gapen, German gaffen), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰеh₂b-. Cognates include Russian зяпа (zjapa). Doublet of gap.
An act of gaping; a yawn.
A large opening.
A disease in poultry caused by gapeworm in the windpipe, a symptom of which is frequent gaping.
The width of an opening.
The maximum opening of the mouth (of a bird, fish, etc.) when it is open.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English gapen, from Old Norse gapa (“to gape”) (compare Swedish gapa, Danish gabe), from Proto-Germanic *gapōną (descendants Middle English geapen, Dutch gapen, German gaffen), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰеh₂b-. Cognates include Russian зяпа (zjapa). Doublet of gap.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.