Word.ws English Dictionary

gaped

/ɡeɪpt/

gaped is the simple past and past participle of gape.

Meaning of gape

Verb

gape (third-person singular simple present gapes, present participle gaping, simple past and past participle gaped)

  1. (intransitive) To open the mouth wide, especially involuntarily, as in a yawn, anger, or surprise.
    • She stretches, gapes, unglues her eyes, / And asks if it be time to rise;1723, Jonathan Swift, The Journal of a Modern Lady, 1810, Samuel Johnson, The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper, Volume 11, page 467
  2. (intransitive) To stare in wonder.
    • Home I vvould go, / But that my Dores are hatefull to my eyes. / Fill'd and damm'd up vvith gaping Creditors, / VVatchfull as Fovvlers vvhen their Game vvill ſpring; […]1682, Thomas Otway, Venice Preserv’d, or, A Plot Discover’d. A Tragedy. […], London: […] Jos[eph] Hindmarsh […], →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 4
  3. (intransitive) To open wide; to display a gap.
    • The wound was gaping open and losing too much blood.
  4. (intransitive) To open the passage to the vomeronasal organ, analogous to the flehming in other animals.
  5. To depict a dilated anal or vaginal cavity upon penetrative sexual activity.

See all 10 meanings of gape

Phrases with gaped

Words that rhyme with gaped

Questions about gaped

What is gaped the simple past and past participle of?
Gaped is the simple past and past participle of gape.
How do you pronounce gaped?
Gaped is pronounced /ɡeɪpt/.

Words near gaped in the dictionary

  1. gape
  2. gape for
  3. gape seed
  4. gape seeds
  5. gape-mouthed
  6. gaped
  7. gaped for
  8. gapeline
  9. gapelines
  10. gapemouthed
  11. gaper

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gaped (page history and authors); gape (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.

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Cite this entry: “gaped.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gaped. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.