Word.ws English Dictionary

opening wide

opening wide is the present participle and gerund of open wide.

Meaning of open wide

Verb

open wide (third-person singular simple present opens wide, present participle opening wide, simple past and past participle opened wide)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To open one's mouth wide, to gape.
    • During my first day in the woods, Raoul, the big alpha male of Rambo II, opened wide to show me his dagger-sharp canines, then sauntered by and swatted my calf with a stick—letting me know my place in the social order. (Low.)2017, Jennifer S. Holland, For These Monkeys, It’s a Fight for Survival., National Geographic (March 2017)http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/03/macaques-monkeys-indonesia-endangered-pet-t...
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see open, wide.

Questions about opening wide

What is opening wide the present participle and gerund of?
Opening wide is the present participle and gerund of open wide.

Words near opening wide in the dictionary

  1. opening titles
  2. opening up
  3. opening up a can of whoop ass
  4. opening up a can of whoop-ass
  5. opening up the kimono
  6. opening wide
  7. openings
  8. openly
  9. openminded
  10. openmindedly
  11. openmindedness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: opening wide (page history and authors); open wide (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: “opening wide.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/opening_wide. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.