Gape vs Gawk - What's the difference?
gape | gawk |
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,
* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=9 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,
* 1662 , , Book II, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More, p. 74:
* , Cato Major, Of Old Age: A Poem , 1710,
(uncommon) An act of gaping; a yawn.
A large opening.
(uncountable) A disease in poultry caused by gapeworm in the windpipe, a symptom of which is frequent gaping.
The width of an opening.
(zoology) The maximum opening of the mouth (of a bird, fish, etc.) when it is open.
Appalachian English
As verbs the difference between gape and gawk
is that gape is to open the mouth wide, especially involuntarily, as in a yawn, anger, or surprise while gawk is to stare or gape stupidly.As nouns the difference between gape and gawk
is that gape is an act of gaping; a yawn while gawk is a cuckoo.gape
English
Verb
(gap)page 467,
- She stretches, gapes , unglues her eyes, / And asks if it be time to rise;
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.}}
page 291,
- May that ground gape , and swallow me alive, / Where I shall kneel to him who slew my father!
- "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."
page 25,
- The hungry grave for her due tribute gapes :
Noun
- (Addison)