Verb

(head)

(gape)

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

(head)

(ape)

Verb

(ap)

To behave like an ape.

To imitate; mimic.

* 1961 , J. A. Philip, "Mimesis in the Sophistês'' of Plato," ''Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association , vol. 92, p. 454,

It is not conceived as a mere “aping ” in externals nor as an enacting in the sense of assuming a foreign role.