Verb

(gap)

To open the mouth wide, especially involuntarily, as in a yawn, anger, or surprise.

* 1723 , , The Journal of a Modern Lady'', 1810, Samuel Johnson, ''The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper , Volume 11, page 467,

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

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)

, chapter=9 citation , passage=Eustace gaped at him in amazement. When his urbanity dropped away from him, as now, he had an innocence of expression which was almost infantile. It was as if the world had never touched him at all.}}

To stare in wonder.

To open wide; to display a gap.

* '', Act 1, Scene 1, 1807, Samuel Johnson, George Steevens (editors),''The plays of William Shakspeare , Volume X, page 291,

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

* 1662 , , 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."

* , Cato Major, Of Old Age: A Poem , 1710, page 25,

The hungry grave for her due tribute gapes :

Verb

(en verb)

(obsolete) To remove the cover from; to uncover (a head, building etc.).

To expose, uncover.

:

(chess) To create by moving a piece out of another piece's line of attack.

:

(archaic) To reveal (information); to divulge, make known.

:

*Shakespeare

*:Go, draw aside the curtains, and discover / The several caskets to this noble prince.

*Francis Bacon

*:Prosperity doth best discover' vice; but adversity doth best ' discover virtue.

(obsolete) To reconnoitre, explore (an area).

*, Bk.V, ch.ix:

*:they seyde the same, and were aggreed that Sir Clegis, Sir Claryon, and Sir Clement the noble, that they sholde dyscover the woodys, bothe the dalys and the downys.

To find or learn something for the first time.

:

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Can China clean up fast enough? , passage=All this has led to an explosion of protest across China, including among a middle class that has discovered nimbyism.}}

(obsolete) To manifest without design; to show; to exhibit.

*C. J. Smith

*:The youth discovered a taste for sculpture.

*1806 , Alexander Hunter, Culina Famulatrix Medicinæ , p.125:

*:The English Cooks keep all their Spices in separate boxes, but the French Cooks make a spicey mixture that does not discover a predominancy of any one of the spices over the others.