Other forms: gaping, gapes, gaped
To gape is to stare with your mouth open in astonishment. Gape at the sight, stood and gaped, gape in wonder.
The open mouth is the whole picture, which is why it always implies astonishment rather than mere looking. A gap in something can also gape — a gaping wound, a gaping hole — and there it means wide open. The word came from Old Norse.
1verbgapeTo stare with the mouth open in astonishment.
“The tourists gaped at the huge waterfall, too amazed to say a word.”
gape is a way of staring.
Middle English gapen comes from Old Norse gapa, to open the mouth. Gap is a relative.
Old Norse
gapa — to gape
Middle English
gapen
English, today
gape
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 ǵʰeh₂-. Cognates include Russian зяпа. a doublet of gap.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA