• IPA: /ˈɡeɪp/

gape (gapes, present participle gaping; past and past participle gaped)

1. (intransitive) To open the mouth wide, especially involuntarily, as in a yawn, anger, or surprise.
   • 1723, Jonathan Swift, The Journal of a Modern Lady, 1810, Samuel Johnson, The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper, Volume 11, [http://books.google.com.au/books?id=XsoUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA467&dq=%22She+stretches,+gapes,+unglues+her+eyes%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=iyp3UuqDOoyfkgW80YDADw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22She%20stretches%2C%20gapes%2C%20unglues%20her%20eyes%22&f=false page 467],

     She stretches, gapes, unglues her eyes, / And asks if it be time to rise;

2. (intransitive) To stare in wonder.
   • 1682, Thomas Otway, Venice Preserv’d, or, A Plot Discover’d. A Tragedy. […], London: Printed for Jos[eph] Hindmarsh […], OCLC 664400715 ↗, Act I, scene i, pages 3–4 ↗:

     Home I would go, / But that my doors#English|Dores are hatefull to my eyes. / Fill'd and damm'd up with gaping Creditors, / Watchful as Fowlers when their Game will spring; [...]

3. (intransitive) To open wide; to display a gap.
   • circa 1591 William Shakespeare, Third Part of King Henry VI, Act 1, Scene 1, 1807, Samuel Johnson, George Steevens (editors),The plays of William Shakspeare, Volume X, [http://books.google.com.au/books?id=zggOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA291&dq=%22May+that+ground+gape,+and+swallow+me+alive%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TSd3UrrvO4PDlAXBqYDoDw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22May%20that%20ground%20gape%2C%20and%20swallow%20me%20alive%22&f=false page 291],

     May that ground gape, and swallow me alive, / Where I shall kneel to him who slew my father!

   • 1662, Henry More, An Antidote Against Atheism, Book II, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More, p. 74:

     "Nor is he deterr'd from the belief of the perpetual flying of the Manucodiata, by the gaping of the feathers of her wings, (which seem thereby less fit to sustain her body) but further makes the narration probable by what he has observed in Kites hovering in the Aire, as he saith, for a whole hour together without any flapping of their wings or changing place."

   • ante 1699 John Denham, Cato Major, Of Old Age: A Poem, 1710, page 25 ↗,

     The hungry grave for her due tribute gapes:

4. (intransitive) Of a cat: to open the passage to the vomeronasal organ, analogous to the flehming in other animals.

• French: bayer, béer
• Italian: spalancare
• Portuguese: bocejar
• Russian: разева́ть рот
• Spanish: boquear

• Russian: глазе́ть

• Portuguese: escancarar
• Russian: зия́ть

gape

1. (uncommon) An act of gaping; a yawn.
2. A large opening.
3. (uncountable) A disease in poultry caused by gapeworm in the windpipe, a symptom of which is frequent gaping.
4. The width of an opening.
5. (zoology) The maximum opening of the mouth (of a bird, fish, etc.) when it is open.

• Russian: зево́к