Gape-mouthed
adj, adv ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 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.”"
- 2 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."
- 3 Having a wide opening.
"A gape-mouthed wicker trunk served as a hive."
- 1 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."
Example
More examples""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.”"
Etymology
From gape + mouthed.
More for "gape-mouthed"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.