| Library / English Dictionary |
GAPING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
With the mouth wide open as in wonder or awe
Example:
with mouth agape
Synonyms:
agape; gaping
Classified under:
Similar:
open; opened (used of mouth or eyes)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb gape
Context examples:
I mused on the funeral day, the coffin, the hearse, the black train of tenants and servants—few was the number of relatives—the gaping vault, the silent church, the solemn service.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
It was a homely little room, with a low ceiling and a gaping fireplace, after the fashion of old country-houses.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The water you seek springs from a well in an enchanted castle; and, that you may be able to reach it in safety, I will give you an iron wand and two little loaves of bread; strike the iron door of the castle three times with the wand, and it will open: two hungry lions will be lying down inside gaping for their prey, but if you throw them the bread they will let you pass; then hasten on to the well, and take some of the Water of Life before the clock strikes twelve; for if you tarry longer the door will shut upon you for ever.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
It plained of its gaping wounds, its inward bleeding, its riven chords.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Their amazement at me, my language, my rules, and ways, once subsided, I found some of these heavy-looking, gaping rustics wake up into sharp-witted girls enough.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
He who is taken out to pass through a fair scene to the scaffold, thinks not of the flowers that smile on his road, but of the block and axe-edge; of the disseverment of bone and vein; of the grave gaping at the end: and I thought of drear flight and homeless wandering—and oh! with agony I thought of what I left.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
