gape-mouthed
gape-mouthed adjective: overwhelmed with awe or astonishment.
Adjective
gape-mouthed (comparative more gape-mouthed, superlative most gape-mouthed)
- Overwhelmed with awe or astonishment.
- "You may be wise in your study in the morning,” (says brow-beating Johnson, to his gape-mouthed admirer Boswell,) “ and gay in company at a tavern in the evening.”1829, The Book of the Boudoir by Lady Morgan. Vol. 1, page 150
- This argument also does Sweden, her king, and Chancellor Oxenstierna a regrettable historical injustice, for it trivializes the gape-mouthed surprise with which most European statesmen greeted the initial successes of the Swedish invaders in 1631.2004, Paul Douglas Lockhart, Sweden in the Seventeenth Century, →ISBN
- Having a wide-open mouth.
- So in the spring my room and that portion of the veranda set aside for the purpose always had at least half a dozen cages and boxes containing gape-mouthed baby birds or birds that I had managed to rescue from the sportsmen and which were recuperating with makeshift splints on wings or legs.2006, Gerald Durrell, The Corfu Trilogy, →ISBN
- And on the second OOOOOOO, you picture just a naked glowing green skull that hangs there vibrating gape-mouthed in a prison cell.2012, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Pulphead: Dispatches from the Other Side of America, →ISBN, page 153
- Having a wide opening.
- A gape-mouthed wicker trunk served as a hive.2008, Solon Timothy Woodward, Cadillac Orpheus: A Novel, →ISBN, page 68
- Now the grime-filmed upper-level windows of their facades peered sadly across at each other over gape-mouthed loading bay entrances whose shutters were all jammed somewhere uncommitted between open and closed.2008, Richard Morgan, Woken Furies, →ISBN
Adverb
gape-mouthed (comparative more gape-mouthed, superlative most gape-mouthed)
- In a state of awe or astonishment.
- As much as we check in, we are checking out of our own lives and becoming voyeuristic, peering gape-mouthed into the sordid details of other people's lives in order to feel connected or entertained.2014, Brendon Burchard, The Motivation Manifesto, →ISBN
- I paused at the entrance and stared, gape-mouthed.2015, Tracy Weber, Karma's a Killer: A Downward Dog Mystery, →ISBN
Examples of gape-mouthed in a sentence
- A corpse swirled past me, gape-mouthed, fish-white, dull eyed.2014, Robert Holdstock, Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn, →ISBN:
- At the best of times it had been too tight, and now the gape-mouthed face resembled a blue tomato.2015, Felicity Savage, A Trickster in the Ashes: An Epic Fantasy Adventure:
- The alien gently manoeuvred the ship out of the gape-mouthed bay.2014, KS Augustin, Quinten's Revenge, →ISBN:
- He tosses two twenties on the table and with a gentle nudge turns me away from Steve, who sits there, impotent, staring gape-mouthed at the cash.2015, Julia Kent, Shopping for a Billionaire:
Forms of gape-mouthed
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more gape-mouthed |
| superlative | most gape-mouthed |
| alternative form | gapemouthed |
| Adverb | |
| comparative | more gape-mouthed |
| superlative | most gape-mouthed |
Origin of gape-mouthed
From gape + mouthed.
Questions about gape-mouthed
- What does gape-mouthed mean?
- Gape-mouthed means overwhelmed with awe or astonishment.
- How do you use gape-mouthed in a sentence?
- A corpse swirled past me, gape-mouthed, fish-white, dull eyed.
- What part of speech is gape-mouthed?
- Gape-mouthed can be an adjective or an adverb.
Words near gape-mouthed in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: gape-mouthed (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “gape-mouthed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gape-mouthed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.