Picture a mouth falling wide open on its own — in a yawn, or the moment something astonishing appears. Nobody decided to do it; the jaw simply drops, and a dark opening is left where the closed mouth used to be. Everything gape does keeps one of the two halves of that moment. Sometimes the eyes stay fixed on what caused it. Sometimes the mouth is forgotten and only the wide opening is left, which is why a door, a wound, or a cave can gape too.
From the word’s history
The Wiktionary evidence in this packet derives gape from Middle English gapen and Old Norse gapa, 'to gape', and states plainly that it is a doublet of gap. So the open mouth and the empty space are two words grown from one root, which is why the modern verb slides so easily between the two.
資料裡的字源說 gape 來自中古英文 gapen、古北歐語 gapa（把嘴張開），並且直接指出它和 gap（空隙）是同源的一對。嘴張開和空著的縫隙，本來就是同一個根長出來的兩個字，也難怪今天的 gape 在這兩邊之間走得這麼順。
Wiktionary extract supplied in this packet (source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:617159900:20511): 'From Middle English gapen, from Old Norse gapa (to gape) ... Doublet of gap.'
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原始詞典資料10 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
gapeverb/ˈɡeɪp/
- 1
To open the mouth wide, especially involuntarily, as in a yawn, anger, or surprise.
- 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, She stretches, gapes, unglues her eyes, / And asks if it be time to rise;
- Eustace gaped at him in amazement. When his urbanity dropped away from him, as now, he had an innocence of expression which was almost infantile. It was as if the world had never touched him at all.
- 2
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; […]
- The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play.
- 3
To open wide; to display a gap.
- The wound was gaping open and losing too much blood.
- May that ground gape, and swallow me alive, / Where I shall kneel to him who slew my father!
- 4
To open the passage to the vomeronasal organ, analogous to the flehming in other animals.
- 5
lifestylemediapornographyTo depict a dilated anal or vaginal cavity upon penetrative sexual activity.
gapenoun/ˈɡeɪp/
- 1
An act of gaping; a yawn.
- Now a gen'ral gape goes round, And vapours cloud each sleepy head.
- 2
A large opening.
- 3
A disease in poultry caused by gapeworm in the windpipe, a symptom of which is frequent gaping.
- 4
The width of an opening.
- 5
biologynatural-scienceszoologyThe maximum opening of the mouth (of a bird, fish, etc.) when it is open.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。