Word.ws English Dictionary

gapes

/ɡeɪps/

gapes is the third-person singular simple present indicative of gape.

gapes is the plural of gape.

Noun

gapes (uncountable)

  1. A fit of yawning.
    • The gapes is contagious: when one person gets the gapes, pretty soon you've got a roomful of gapers.
  2. A disease of young poultry and other birds, caused by a parasitic nematode worm in the windpipe, and having uneasy gaping as a symptom.
    • The gapes has gotten to many of the birds.

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 gapes

Words that rhyme with gapes

Questions about gapes

What does gapes mean?
Gapes means a fit of yawning.
What is gapes the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Gapes is the third-person singular simple present indicative of gape.
What part of speech is gapes?
Gapes is a noun.
How do you pronounce gapes?
Gapes is pronounced /ɡeɪps/.

Words near gapes in the dictionary

  1. gaper
  2. gapers
  3. gapers block
  4. gapers' block
  5. gapers' blocks
  6. gapes
  7. gapes for
  8. gapeseed
  9. gapeseeds
  10. gapesing
  11. gapest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gapes (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: “gapes.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gapes. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.