Other forms: gasping, gasps, gasped
To gasp is to pull in a sharp breath through your mouth — the sound of shock, of pain, of stepping into a cold shower. A whole cinema gasps in the same second. A swimmer breaks the surface and gasps.
It also covers fighting for air: gasping for breath at the top of the stairs, a fish gasping on the bank. As a noun, a gasp is the breath itself — a gasp of surprise, an audible gasp went round the hall. Two phrases are worth having: at the last gasp means at the very last possible moment, as in a goal at the last gasp, and in British informal speech gasping for means desperate for a drink — I'm gasping for a cup of tea. Gasp is a sound word: say it out loud and you have made one.
1verbgaspTo take a short, sharp breath in, from shock, pain or surprise.
“She gasped when she saw the price on the label.”
2verbpantTo struggle to breathe.
“He came up the last flight of stairs gasping and had to sit down.”
3nounintakeA short, sharp intake of breath.
“There was a gasp from the back of the hall and then complete silence.”
4verbwantTo want something very much, especially a drink; informal and mainly British, used as gasping for.
“I have been gasping for a cold drink since two o'clock.”
A gasp began as a yawn. Middle English gaspen came from Old Norse geispa, to yawn, or from its Danish descendant gispe, and it may belong with gapa, to gape. All three are the same open mouth: the Norse word for the slow version turned into the English word for the sudden one.
Old Norse
geispa — to yawn
Middle English
gaspen
English, today
gasp
Built from
From Middle English gaspen, gayspen (“to gape, outbreathe”), related to and likely derived from Old Norse geispa (“to yawn”) or its descendant Danish gispe, which may be related to gapa (“to gape”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA