as in stares
a fixed intent look
I told him to stop staring, that his rather stupid gape was annoying
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in gazes
to look long and hard in wonder or surprise
she suddenly realized she had been gaping at the good-looking waiter instead of giving him her order
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
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Recent Examples of gapes
Literary Hub, 10 Feb. 2026
Verb
Straitjacketed inside the inescapable present, Pearl gapes up to discover that her husband, Walker, has found her; Walker was always going to find her.
—Literary Hub, 10 Feb. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for gapes
Noun
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Musgraves and Hannah Lux Davis co-directed the song’s cheeky video, which is set in a grocery store and is ripe with fruit-touching and wistful stares.—
Travis Pinson,
Dallas Morning News,
11 Mar. 2026
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Her performance is a showpiece of stiffness and resentment, all mannered pouting and stern forehead-forward stares, that’s two steps away from parody — until her earrings in the sixth episode bring it over the line.—
Jackson McHenry,
Vulture,
11 Mar. 2026
Verb
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Tuxedoed servers wear playing-card pins on their lapels; a slot machine in the entryway shaped like a life-size Doc Holliday gazes at diners with uncanny intensity.—
Helen Rosner,
New Yorker,
1 Mar. 2026
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Curving around the glistening, glacial Sarmiento Lake, an amphitheater of rooms gazes up at the Paine massif, with scenes constantly shifting depending on the time of day.—
Sarah Marshall,
Condé Nast Traveler,
22 Jan. 2026
Noun
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By then the oil companies, mindful of the world’s disapproving eyes, had positioned the gas flares among the vegetation and pointed the flames horizontally to limit their visibility from a distance.—
Noo Saro-Wiwa,
The Dial,
24 Mar. 2026
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His sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks were undeniably adorable.—
Gaby Del Valle,
Harpers Magazine,
24 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Gapes.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/gapes. Accessed 1 Apr. 2026.
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