Other forms: gazing, gazes, gazed
To gaze is to look at something for a long time without wanting to look away. A child at fireworks, a passenger at the window of a slow train, two people across a table who have stopped talking.
Gaze is longer and softer than stare — you stare at a stranger behaving oddly, you gaze at the sea. It nearly always takes AT, INTO or OUT OF: gaze at the ceiling, gaze into the fire, gaze out of the window. The noun is a gaze, and you can feel someone's gaze on the back of your neck. In writing about art and film, 'the gaze' means the way a camera looks at its subject, and that use belongs to essays rather than conversation. Gaze is never blank; the whole point is that you are absorbed.
1verbgazeTo look at something steadily for a long time.
“He gazed at the map without really reading it.”
synonyms: stare, contemplate
2nounsteadyA long, steady look.
“She met his gaze and held it.”
3nounartIn writing about art and film, the way a viewer or a camera looks at its subject.
“The essay argues that the camera's gaze never leaves her.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Also accepted in games: stare
Gaze turns up in Middle English as gasen and the trail stops shortly after. Its nearest known relatives are a Swedish dialect word, gasa, and a Gothic verb meaning 'to terrify'. The old company it kept was the looking that comes with a shock; the calm, dreamy gaze is the English end of that family.
Middle English
gasen
English, today
gaze
From Middle English gasen; akin to Swedish - dialectal gasa and Gothic 𐌿𐍃𐌲𐌰𐌹𐍃𐌾𐌰𐌽 (“to terrify”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA