GAPING

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does gaping mean? 

• GAPING (adjective)
  The adjective GAPING has 1 sense:

1. with the mouth wide open as in wonder or awe

  Familiarity information: GAPING used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GAPING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

With the mouth wide open as in wonder or awe

Synonyms:

agape; gaping

Context example:

with mouth agape

Similar:

open; opened (used of mouth or eyes)

 Context examples 

The gaping wound of my wrongs, too, was now quite healed; and the flame of resentment extinguished.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

“Dat Spitz fight lak hell,” said Perrault, as he surveyed the gaping rips and cuts.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

With a rending, tearing sound, one of the broad, white stones turned over upon its side and left a square, gaping hole, through which streamed the light of a lantern.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Why do you stand gaping there?” cried the dwarf, and his ashen-grey face became copper-red with rage.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

It is like a broad red church spire, the top of it being level with the plateau, but a great chasm gaping between.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A gaping throat explained the manner of his death.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

I’d give something for a photograph of your gaping, staring face when you pulled aside that lid expecting to see the Lady Frances Carfax and only found a poor old woman of ninety.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The breeze fell for some seconds, very low, and the current gradually turning her, the HISPANIOLA revolved slowly round her centre and at last presented me her stern, with the cabin window still gaping open and the lamp over the table still burning on into the day.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Know then that if these rows were dug up the wealth of the country would be gone, and mayhap there would be dry throats and gaping mouths in England, for in three months' time these black roots will blossom and shoot and burgeon, and from them will come many a good ship-load of Medoc and Gascony which will cross the narrow seas.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

We were sitting as before, one evening (when my mother was out as before), in company with the stocking and the yard-measure, and the bit of wax, and the box with St. Paul's on the lid, and the crocodile book, when Peggotty, after looking at me several times, and opening her mouth as if she were going to speak, without doing it—which I thought was merely gaping, or I should have been rather alarmed—said coaxingly: Master Davy, how should you like to go along with me and spend a fortnight at my brother's at Yarmouth?

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)