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Gaping   /gˈeɪpɪŋ/   Listen
Gaping

adjective
1.
With the mouth wide open as in wonder or awe.  Synonym: agape.  "We stood there agape with wonder" , "With mouth agape"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Gaping" Quotes from Famous Books



... he said, at last, "you gaping old gudgeon, what you standing staring there for? Send Mr. Wynne up. Tell him the lady is here, and Ay want to ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... would make possible, hasten, and prolong the race war that sometimes struck him as inevitable. As he turned, he saw a tall, fine-looking negro, fifty yards away, in the uniform of a sergeant of cavalry and surrounded by a crowd of gaping darkies whom he was haranguing earnestly. Lieutenant and sergeant were evidently on ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.

... a bit, you dirty little rascals. What can it be that sets you all a-gaping? Get home to your beds, get home, lazy rascals, Or you shall all have ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica

... of riders and of led-horses, of sumpter mules, and of menials and attendants, both lay and ecclesiastical, which thronged around the gate of the Episcopal mansion, together with the gaping crowd of inhabitants who had gathered around, some to gaze upon the splendid show, some to have the chance of receiving the benediction of the Holy Prelate, was so great as to impede the Constable's approach to the palace-door; and when this obstacle was surmounted, he found ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... Medicis; and the success of the Jesuits at this moment roused the dread of a general conspiracy against Protestantism. A Puritan lawyer named Stubbs only expressed the alarm of his fellows in his "Discovery of a Gaping Gulf" in which England was to plunge through the match with Anjou. When the hand of the pamphleteer was cut off as a penalty for his daring, Stubbs waved his hat with the hand that was left, and cried "God save ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... somehow the repetition is seldom attended with much success, while of original fancies of the same sort we are obliged to confess ourselves almost destitute. Who can behold the fantastic humors of Gothic carvings without being both amused and interested? Those grotesque heads with gaping mouths recall the stories of childhood, peopled with goblins and gnomes. It is all so natural, and so much in keeping with the architecture which surrounds it, the carving is so rude and simple, that it seems absurd when ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack

... to be endured, but she more than kept her promise to "be good." Not a sound or a movement betrayed suffering. She spoke only once. After the knife was laid aside and the threaded needle was passed through the quivering flesh to draw the gaping edges of the wound together, she asked, after the first stitch had been completed, in a low, almost calm tone, with only a slight tremulousness, how many more were to be taken. When the operation was over, and the surgeons were preparing to depart, she questioned them minutely ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... somersault on the way, as defiantly as the Golden Eagle had "looped the loop" over German heads at Brussels, and then plumped down on top of the fallen garment, landing with its pointed satin nose poked under the flap of a slightly gaping breast-pocket. ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... an attorney of Lincoln's Inn, and Robert Page, his servant (December 3, 1580), had their hands struck off for a libel on the Queen, called "The Gaping Gulph, in which England will be swallowed by the French Marriage." What part the unfortunate servant played that he, too, should deserve a punishment so terrible is difficult to say. On March 2, 1585, William Parry was drawn from the Tower and hanged and quartered here. ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... not right great. There they saw the goodman laid on the dais in all his war-gear, under the last tie-beam of his hall, whereon was carved amidst much goodly work of knots and flowers and twining stems the image of the Wolf of the Waste, his jaws open and gaping: the wife and daughters of the goodman and other women of the folk stood about the bier singing some old song in a low voice, and some sobbing therewithal, for the man was much beloved: and much people of the Woodlanders ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... ten-minute speeches, and one of them gave the audience a serious account how he was now a lawyer but had been a poet, and then a long enumeration of the inconveniences of authorship, rascally booksellers, reviewers, &c.; which first set the audience a-gaping; but I have said enough. You will be so sorry, that you will not think the best of me for my detail; but news is news at Canton. Poor H. I fear will feel the disappointment very seriously in a pecuniary light. From what I can learn he ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... discovered a great pit in the field behind the lane and the crowd quickly surrounded it. From their limited knowledge of the facts the explosion seemed unaccountable, but there was sufficient intelligence among them to determine that dynamite had caused it and dug this gaping hole in the stony soil. Bob West glanced at the printing office, which was directly in line with the explosion; then he cast a shrewd look into the white face of Thursday Smith; but the old hardware merchant merely muttered under ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne

... great projector of the thunderbolts, He that is wont to piss whole clouds of rain Into the earth, vast gaping urinal, Which that one-ey'd subsizer of the sky, Dan Phoebus, empties by calidity; He and his townsmen planets brings to thee Most fatty lumps of ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... fates would hang. A deep hum of surprise rose from the ring of Arabs, and deepened as the Frenchman drew another date from the nostril of a camel and tossed it into the air, from which, apparently, it never descended. That gaping sleeve was obvious enough to his companions, but the dim light was all in favour of the performer. So delighted and interested was the audience that they paid little heed to a mounted camel-man who trotted swiftly between the palm trunks. All ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle

... cautiously, Geordie climbed in his tracks—went first to the office to give warning to Nolan, then round to the compressor to instruct the little guard. Cawker poked a head from a window and looked anxiously toward the gaping mouth of the ravine. The darkness of night was already settling in its gloomy depths. The homely shed looked black and forbidding. Aloft on each side were precipitous slopes affording but slight foothold. Little likelihood was there of rioters sliding ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King

... after all the raskall many ran, Heaped together in rude rablement, To see the face of that victorious man, Whom all admired as from heaven sent, And gazd upon with gaping wonderment; But when they came where that dead Dragon lay, Stretcht on the ground in monstrous large extent, The sight with ydle feare did them dismay, Ne durst approch him nigh ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... void futurity. Aye, I had planned full many a sanguine scheme, Romantic schemes and fraught with loveliness; And it is hard to feel the hand of death Arrest one's steps; throw a chill blast O'er all one's budding hopes, and hurl one's soul Untimely to the grave, lost in the gaping gulf Of blank oblivion. Fifty years hence, And who will think of Henry? ah, none! Another busy world of beings will start up In the interim, and none will hold him In remembrance. I shall sink as sinks ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French

... great granite frieze for a great granite factory in Cologne. She got from him some notion of the design. It was a representation of a fair, with peasants and artisans in an orgy of enjoyment, drunk and absurd in their modern dress, whirling ridiculously in roundabouts, gaping at shows, kissing and staggering and rolling in knots, swinging in swing-boats, and firing down shooting galleries, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... instant—he was in the attitude of a miser surprised while counting his hoard. Then he answered "One moment, please!" and slipped the little heap of packets into the biggest of the drawers of the davenport, which happened to be open. The aperture of the false back was still gaping, and he had not time to work back the spring. He hastily laid a big book over the place and then went and ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James

... time in coming. Meanwhile, we were hanging in space, a frisky balloon overhead, and below, Hawkins' engine having considerately left a little of the telegraph company's property uninjured, six telegraph wires and a gaping crowd. ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin

... streams, and no other process has ever been suggested which is competent to produce them. We must conclude that valley systems have been formed by the river systems which drain them, aided by the work of the weather; they are not gaping fissures in the earth's crust, as early observers imagined, but are the furrows which running water has drawn ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

... the Crown Prince hung on the walls above a glass filled with war trophies. With a horrible sickness at heart I recognized amongst other emblems a glengarry with a silver badge and a British steel helmet with a gaping hole through the crown. Then I remembered I was in the region of the VIIth Corps, which supplies some of our toughest opponents on ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... came the Saracens. Thrice they were driven back; thrice they came on. At the fourth onset few of the Franks could fight more, for thirst had conquered them on this waterless hill of Hattin. They lay down upon the dry grass with gaping jaws and protruding tongues, and let themselves be slain or taken prisoners. A great company of Saracen horsemen broke through the ring and rushed at the scarlet tent. It rocked to and fro, then down it fell in a red heap, entangling ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard

... that Bob Harvey had thought proper to send a ball through the suspected foliage which concealed that part of the cliff. Soon he redoubled his attack, when another ball having torn away the leafy screen, disclosed a gaping aperture in ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... a smashed head, of a throat cut, of a gaping gunshot wound, would have been an inexpressible relief. It would have soothed all his fears. His soul cried within him to that dead man whom he had never found wanting in danger. "Why don't you tell me what I am to look for, Tom? Why don't you?" But in rigid immobility, extended on his ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... anxious Kano and one of the male nurses from the hospital, she had turned toward him the old look of resentment: but, instead of the brief and chilling glance she had thought to use, found herself staring, gaping, in amazement and incredulity. She did not believe, for the first moment, that the wreck she saw was Tatsu. This bowed and shrunken ghost of suffering,—this loose, pallid semblance of a man, the beautiful, defiant, compelling demigod of the mountains that had ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa

... character, but it should be for some respectable reason. George fidgeted on his chair while Macgregor told the usual cock-and-bull stories of monstrous hotel-bills seen sticking out of Burrows's tail-pockets, and there deciphered by a gaping populace; and his mental discomfort reached its climax when Macgregor wound ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... no turning," and the hardest tasks come to an end some time, and Amelia's dresses were clean at last; but then a more wearisome work was before her. They had to be mended. Amelia looked at the jagged rents made by the hedges; the great gaping holes in front where she had put her foot through; the torn tucks and gathers. First she wept, then she bitterly regretted that she had so often refused to do her sewing at home that she was very awkward with her needle. Whether she ever would ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... and hang the baby's mattress out of the window, then get the wagon and take him for a little walk along the road. In front of the house, mind—where I can see you. Don't stand there, gaping! Then come in when I call you and help ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield

... stop, till at last they both lacked wind, and thus they stood swaying, staggering, panting, yet feinting and striking with what strength they had. The Red Knight was a cunning fighter, and Beaumains learned much from him, though it was at the cost of many a gaping wound. ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert

... the situation and applied to Ivanoff for reenforcements. Owing to some blunder the appeal never reached the Russian chief, and Dmitrieff had to do the best he could. Nothing now could save his small force from those grim lines of gaping muzzles turned against his positions. The overture began on April 28, 1915, with an advance on the Upper Biala toward Gorlice, by Von Mackensen's right. Here some minor attacks had been previously made, and the gradually increasing pressure did not at first reveal the intent or ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... shooting, had been completely riddled; the windows were almost bare of glass; and great splinters of wood had been torn from the log walls by the heavy rifle bullets on their way through to the interior. Soon the door sagged and crashed inward, and into the gaping hole thus made Wade continued to empty ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... he said quietly. A great gaping wound showed squarely in the center of the shark's belly. It must have been ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay

... skin and bones, is it that you are standing there gaping at out of the window?' said her husband. 'I think 'twould be better if you just looked how the sucking pig is getting on, instead of hanging out of window in that way. Don't you know what grand folk we have in ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... most dangerously injured was Graydon Bansemer. He was one of the first to cross the danger line; a Mauser ball from a distant hill tore through his side, leaving an ugly gaping ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... Together did what business could be done; Sometimes they'd luck to stir up small disputes Among their friends, and raise them into suits: Though close and hard, the father was content With this resource, now old and indolent: But his young Swallow, gaping and alive To fiercer feelings, was resolved to thrive: - "Father," he said, "but little can they win, Who hunt in couples where the game is thin; Let's part in peace, and each pursue his gain, Where it may start—our love may yet remain." The parent growl'd, he couldn't think that love ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe

... ye'll not miss it," said Fergus, but his eyes and his heart were fixed upon the bud, which was slowly gaping apart, showing a faint tinge ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... gaping round the tortured lover; and grinned as he thought of some respectable, newly-married spectre enabled by the state of his own affections to catch an inkling of what was going on within Bosinney; ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... mammoth in the shoulder, while Ayrault's aim was farther back. As the balls exploded, a half-barrelful of flesh and hide was shot from each, leaving two gaping holes. Instantly he rushed among the trees, making his course known for some time by his roars. As he turned, Bearwarden fired again, but the hall flew over him, blowing off the top of a tree. "Now for the chase!" said Ayrault. "There would be no excuse for ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... which for a long time had caused him great pain, became so swollen and inflamed that every step was torture. Ulcers, which opened and left gaping wounds, next made their appearance. It was said that in earlier years he had taken the place of an unfortunate man who had been condemned to the galleys and who was in consequence on the verge of despair, and that the malady from which he suffered had been caused ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes

... around some of the windows, in ancient characters, were Scripture texts and antique proverbs. Two time worn specimens of heraldic zoology, in a state of fearful and everlasting excitement, stood rampant and gaping, one on each side of the hall door, contrasting strangely with the repose of the ancient house, which looked very like what the oldest part of it was said to have been—a monastery. It had at the same time, however, a somewhat ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... about it, except its beauty, upon our insect. The flower is large and tubular, and the bee to reach the honey must enter it; to see the bee almost disappear within the folds of the corolla, one would think that it was about being swallowed, when the hideous mouth was gaping to receive it; but unharmed, soon it emerges from the yellow prison, covered with dust; this is not brushed into pellets on its legs, like the pollen from some other flowers, but a part adheres to its back between the wings, which it is apparently unable to remove, as ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby

... the church remains, and the churchyard is as if some devil had stalked through it, tearing up crosses and kicking down graves. Even the dead are not left undisturbed in this awful war. The village (like many other villages) is just a mass of gaping ruins—roofs blown off, streets full of holes, not a window left unshattered, ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... on to the gallery; Leonora's to the east, the girl's next, then Edward's. The sight of those three open doors, side by side, gaping to receive whom the chances of the black night might bring, made Leonora shudder all over her body. She ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... shoulders of his companions, and even so as likely as not, his fingers could not reach the top, but hand holds and foot holds must be hewn with the ax till a ladder was formed. Now it was some crevasse gaping across their path; they must search this way and that for a firm snow-bridge by which to overpass it. It was difficult, as Pierre Delouvain discovered, to find a path through that tangled labyrinth ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason

... over her work, unaccustomed muscles aching, the whirring machines in her ears. Monia, upset over the morning's excitement, was irritable and unreasonable. The gold-tissue costume had come back from Le Grande with a complaint. Below in the courtyard all day curious groups stood gaping up the staircase, where the morning had ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... him even to the feet, and dealt him many a wound, and breathed out venom upon him; had it not been for a ring which Sir Lancelot ware upon his finger he had fallen dead where he stood from the poison. Then the monster sprang towards him with gaping jaws, as it were fain to swallow him, and Lancelot watched his chance, and thrust his sword into its mouth, and clave the heart in sunder, and the beast gave a cry so terrible that 'twas heard a good two ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston

... at this turn. He remained gaping at the creatures and at the torpoon, now turned against its mother submarine. ...
— Under Arctic Ice • H.G. Winter

... nature, and his sobs wellnigh choked him. He took his little half brother in his arms, held him to his breast, and kissed him as though to restore to him the love of which he had unwittingly deprived him. Then he looked at the lad's gaping shoes, torn sleeves, and dirty hands, at all the manifest signs of wretchedness and neglect. And he told him that he would take him away, and that they would both live happily together. The next day, when he began to inquire into affairs, he felt afraid that he would not be able ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... powerless, the oracles of the gods were consulted. Must this gaping wound always stand open in the soil of Rome? or could it in any way be filled and the offended deities who had caused it be propitiated? From the oracle came the reply that it must stand open till that which constituted the best and true ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... hideous despot, and nursed by violence and rapine; the stakes and fires of Mary, and the craftier cruelties of Elizabeth,—England, strengthened by the desolation of Ireland, the Civil Wars, the reign of hypocrisy, followed by the reign of naked vice; the nation that beheaded the graceful Charles gaping idly on the scaffold of the lofty Sidney; the vain Revolution of 1688, which, if a jubilee in England, was a massacre in Ireland; the bootless glories of Marlborough; the organized corruption of Walpole, the frantic war with ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... here and imagine that all the world is gaping at your pictures? Just think how full an average man's life is of his own pursuits and pleasures. When twenty thousand of him find time to look up between mouthfuls and grunt something about something they aren't the least interested ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... enjoy her improved position, when quick as a flash an order was given: Two men unrolled one of their army stretchers; the woman was whipped up and placed upon it; the poles were seized and off they went, carrying that misguided creature with them through all the gaping, jeering crowd. The last I saw of her she was hiding her face in the coarse army blanket, probably 'crying her eyes out,' as you would say, ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann

... chain, And his clogged tongue, that still he strove to teach, Denied all answering speech! The monarch bade him mark The clotted blood that, dark, Distained his royal bosom, and that found Its way, still issuing, from a mortal wound, Ghastly and gaping wide, upon his throat! The shadow passed—another took his place, Of the same royal race; The noble Yumuri, the only son Of the old monarch, heir to his high throne, Cut off by cunning in his youthful pride; There was the murderer's gash, and the red tide Still pouring from his ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... just it. There's no time to stand gaping; the money must be found one way or other, and then he must ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al

... 'B. B.'!—Beryl Brentano. Do you wonder, gentlemen, that when this overwhelming evidence of her guilt came into my possession, compassion for a beautiful woman was strangled by supreme horror, in the contemplation of the depravity of a female monster? If these crimson letters were gaping wounds, could their bloody lips more solemnly accuse yonder blanched, shuddering, conscience-stricken woman of the sickening crime of murdering her aged, infirm grandfather, from whose veins she drew the red tide that ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... French and German were posted, embodying regulations governing the village under Prussian military rule. The few inhabitants of Morsbronn who had remained in cellars during the bombardment shuffled up to read these notices, or to loiter stupidly, gaping at the Prussian ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... with. When we contrast these results with those obtained from ligation, graduated pressure by "clamps," suture pins, or the slicing off of a part of the scrotum, and suturing, or stitching, the wide gaping wound so caused, as is practiced to-day by other surgeons, the marked superiority of the results obtained, through our superior method of operating on ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... as yesterday, the meadows drying up for want of rain; and there was a thirsty chirruping of small birds in the hedgerows. Everywhere he saw rooks gaping on the low walls that divided the fields. The farmers were complaining; but they were always complaining—everyone was complaining. He had complained of the dilatoriness of the Board of Works, and now for the first time in his life he sympathized a little with the Board. If it ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... The white man had abandoned his rifle. Now he stood erect, a revolver in each hand, in the midst of the remainder of his faithful band. He was wounded in many places. Nor had the Indians with him fared better. Warm blood streamed from gaping wounds which were left unheeded. For the fight was to the finish, and not one of them but would have ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... sat awhile in the hall, I went to my room, lighted a candle, and cleansed myself and my weapons, and my clothes as well as I could, of blood. Having put myself to rights, though the rents in my doublet were still gaping, I went back to the bench in the hall, and passed the rest of the night there, ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens

... great horses for a man at arms. Lords had their armories to furnish some hundreds of men. The halls of justices of the peace were dreadful to behold, the skreens were garnished with corslets and helmets, gaping with open mouth, with coats of mail, lances, pikes, halberts, brown bills, batterdashers, bucklers, and the modern colivers and petronils (in King Charles I.'s time) turned into muskets and pistols. Then were entails in fashion, (a good prop for monarchy). Destroying ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey

... at their greatness tremble. Sheets of flame, in livid fierceness, Sweep and fly in wildest swiftness; O'er the rugged heights ascending, Cast their lurid glares upon them, In their course revealing further Of the dangers hid in darkness. And beneath him gulphs are yawning, Greedy to devour, are gaping; Torrents deep within them roaring, Lashing up their foamy billows; With the laving of their forces All the pathway shakes and trembles. Brutes, in hungry anger raving, Prowl from dens, and caves, and caverns, Mingle with the ghosts and spectres, Lusting for a bloody surfeit. Reptiles, ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar

... the Fire-eater—or, should I say, the day of the great Fire-eater—has passed. No longer does fashion flock to his doors, nor science study his wonders, and he must now seek a following in the gaping loiterers of the circus side-show, the pumpkin-and-prize-pig country fair, or the tawdry booth at Coney Island. The credulous, wonder-loving scientist, however, still abides with us and, while his ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... away the bloody shirt from the shoulder and exposed the gaping hole to view. It was still bleeding slightly, but he noted with satisfaction that the bullet had passed completely through the fleshy part of the shoulder without touching the bone, a painful wound, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... out among the hazel bushes by the fence. The girls went peeping here and there and everywhere in quest of birds' nests, and their diligent search was amply rewarded. In the hollow of a decaying stump a robin was feeding five little gaping mouths, the blackbird's mate guarded four speckled eggs, and three separate thrushes had pale-blue treasures in ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... later, when the sun was quite high, men began to march about and scores of shots were fired a long way off, also a wounded cock-pheasant fell near to us and fluttered away, making a queer noise in its throat. It looked very funny stumbling along on one leg with its beak gaping and two of the long ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard

... innocent laughter of infantile glee. Two tiny mud-stained figures rushed at the doorway and fell sprawling into the hut. They were on their feet again in a moment, laughing and crowing out their delight. Then, as the man and woman sprang apart, they stood round-eyed, wondering and gaping. ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... up the lift. Oh, he's used to it. He gets politicians from Bradford and such places dropping in at all hours. Don't try the marble staircase—it's winding and slippery at the edge. . . . And don't stand gaping at me in that helpless fashion, but get a move on your intelligence. . . . We're dealing with a lady in distress, and that's our first consideration. Now I can't take you on to Wimbledon, however willing to be shut of you: first, because it would ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... said. "I was just trying it on to please mother and Miss Stella. Look at the silly things gaping like goggle- eyed perch at the window. One would think that the revolutions of the earth on its axis and the movement of all the planets depended on this scrap of cloth and the vain thing that ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... the grip of an irresistible subconscious complex, Warble scoops up the caterpillar and in an instant has fed him into the gaping maw at the back of that loose ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells

... look loike a bein' o' this warld," observed Blackrod, gaping with alarm, for the stout keeper was easily assailable on the side of superstition; "an there is a mowdy air about him, that gies one the shivers to see. Ey've often heer'd say the Abbey is haanted; an that pale-feaced chap looks like one ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Jocelyn saw flash before his eyes, More stars that e'er he'd noticed in the skies. Whereat Sir Pertinax did gaping stare, Then ground his teeth and mighty oaths did swear, And in an instant bared his trusty blade, But then the Duke his fiery ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... of the tunnel lay a great, gaping, jagged tear in the wall of rock. This tear, or hole, extended some ten feet to the north ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock

... lurched and fell heavily to the ground. The warm blood spurted out in jets and covered the officials and nobles as they cut savagely at the feebly struggling carcase, and the red liquid splashed the Rajah as he stood gloating over the gaping wounds and the sufferings of the poor sacrifice, his heavy face lit up by a ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... could I discover any sign which might indicate the character or intentions of the man who lived in this singular place, save that he must be of Spartan habits and cared little for the comforts of life. When I thought of the heavy rains and looked at the gaping roof I understood how strong and immutable must be the purpose which had kept him in that inhospitable abode. Was he our malignant enemy, or was he by chance our guardian angel? I swore that I would not leave the hut ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle

... instant the little figure of the Doctor is in the room. He stares at the red-faced boy, and quick as a flash he sees the open mouth, the dazed, gaping eyes, the graying face of Margaret as she leans heavily upon George Brotherton. In another instant the Doctor sees her rally, grapple with herself, bring back the slow color as if by main strength, and smile a hard forced smile, as the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... did. After dinner I again sought out this fascinating window, but, instead of a maiden, I beheld a glass containing white bellflowers. I clambered up, stole the flowers, put them quietly in my cap, and descended, unheeding the gaping mouths, petrified noses, and goggle eyes, with which the people in the street, and especially the old women, regarded this qualified theft. As I, an hour later, passed by the same house, the beauty stood ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... pushed them, and they swung behind him with a grunt that repeated itself several times, lessening and shortening until it ended in an abrupt puffing sound—and he found himself in a chilly corridor of stone. It was very dark; the candle threw the shadow of his hand down the gaping length in front of him. He went stealthily a few steps further, then stopped opposite a closed door of white. For a moment he held his breath, examining the panels by the light of the raised candle; then turned the knob of brass, threw it wide open, and found ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... John broke in on his meditations. Then there was a clatter as a briar pipe dropped on to the floor of the boat, and his uncle sat up, gaping. ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... on. The ladies did not enjoy the licence offered by this new fashion, but they contrived to hold their own in the French mode, and I, who had heard much of the poverty of the nation, the necessities of the fleet, and the straits in which the King found himself for money, was left gaping in sheer wonder whence came all the wealth that was displayed before my eyes. My own poor preparations lost all their charm, and I had not been above half an hour in the place before I was seeking a quiet corner in which to hide the poverty ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... recollections of the world outside: of wives, friends, children, brothers: starved to death, and made the stones ring with their unavailing groans. But, the thrill I felt on seeing the accursed wall below, decayed and broken through, and the sun shining in through its gaping wounds, was like a sense of victory and triumph. I felt exalted with the proud delight of living in these degenerate times, to see it. As if I were the hero of some high achievement! The light in the doleful vaults was typical of the ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... hogs; there seemed to be nowhere another foot of available room. The red water-line of the ship was already submerged, yet notwithstanding this fact her derricks clanged noisily, her booms swung back and forth, and her gaping hatches swallowed momentary loads. Those fishermen who had come aboard early had settled like flies in the rigging, whence they taunted their enemies, ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... the matter?" said Flutethroat, opening his yellow bill quite an inch, and gaping dreadfully without putting a wing before ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn

... stood thus, the man dumfounded, moveless, gaping, the girl as grimly resolute as Fate itself, the little revolver steady, its muzzle unwaveringly menacing Brice's face. The collie continued to gyrate, ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... gape at my sermons. In the middle of an exquisite address to Virtue, beginning 'O Virtue!' I saw a rascal gaping as if his ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... for the partial development, on all possible occasions, of some flannel vestment of a singular structure; also for affording glimpses, in the region of the back, of a corset, or a pair of stays, in colour a dead green. Being always in a state of gaping admiration at everything, and absorbed, besides, in the perpetual contemplation of her mistress's perfections and the baby's, Miss Slowboy, in her little errors of judgment, may be said to have done equal honour to her head and to her heart; and though these did less honour to the baby's ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... in the sand. The four cans were bent with gaping seams, and their sides were scored with the prints of William's hoofs. In a corner of one of them Casey found a scant half-cup of water, which he drank greedily. It could no more than ease for a moment his parched throat; it could not ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... the unwilling attention of the roisterers, in verses 13-17, which throb with vehemence of warning and gloomy eloquence. What can such a people come to but destruction? Knowledge must languish, hunger and thirst must follow. Like some monster's gaping mouth, the pit yawns for them; and, drawn as by irresistible attraction, the pomp and the wicked, senseless jollity elide down into it. In the universal catastrophe, one thing alone stands upright, and is lifted higher, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... into a pocket and stood for several seconds looking directly into Rathburn's eyes. A curious expression was on the deputy's face, partly wonder, partly admiration, partly doubt. Then he turned abruptly upon his heel and walked back to the gaping men. ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts

... that that bullying old Pumblechook, preyed upon by a devouring curiosity to be informed of all I had seen and heard, came gaping over in his chaise-cart at tea-time, to have the details divulged to him. And the mere sight of the torment, with his fishy eyes and mouth open, his sandy hair inquisitively on end, and his waistcoat heaving with windy arithmetic, made me ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... his suddenly aged neighbour; but he had lost all desire of asking any more questions. At last a brisk young woman, with a boy of a twelvemonth old in her arms, and with a little girl holding her hand, made her way through the gaping crowd, and they looked for all the world ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous

... stubborn alloy gave up its heat to the cooling liquid. Endlessly the three necessary minutes dragged their slow way into time, but finally the water ceased boiling and Rodebush tore the ship from the lake and hurled her into the gaping doorway of her dock. The massive doors of the air-locks opened, and while the full crew of picked men hurried aboard with their personal equipment, Samms talked earnestly to the two scientists in the ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith

... these misfortunes they had now to contend with the blast of drought that lay over the land; with the fiery sun, that streamed from cloudless skies, beneath which the very earth shrunk from itself in gaping fissures; with the wild night wind, that shrieked and skirled with devastating breath over the wilderness beneath the cold light of the ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... exchange a knowing look, for they have seen the enemy's ship heavily listing to one side, where the water is rushing into the gaping wound, and soon she must capsize. They see her crew hastily lowering the life boats—their only means of escape—and this is a sufficient proof of our victory. We can depart now in all security. Concealing our presence, we plunge and ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner

... a visit to the library, where most of the readers seemed wholly absorbed, though one student was gaping forlornly over a volume of Tennyson. I found an intensely amusing book, "Who's Who in Japan," a copy of which would be a valuable standby to a newspaper paragrapher in his bad moments. ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... far out from the tower, so that it seemed she must drop, was a statue of the Virgin with the Christ in her arms. It was a superstition with the French, I remembered, that so long as she did not fall, things would go well with the Allies. As we watched, a shell screamed over the gaping roofs and a column of smoke went up. Gehenna, being blessed by the infant Jesus—that was what ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson

... who had gathered round, and were standing gaping in joyful expectation of Pope Joan, or a pool at commerce, here exchanged ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... with such furious strength, that they cried aloud with pain and fell headlong at his feet. The people parted for a space in awe and wonder, and Zoroaster turned, with his dark mantle close drawn around him, and strode out through the gaping crowd. ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... regular monkey-show," grumbled the American. "Look how the crowd is gaping and shoving and fighting ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben



Words linked to "Gaping" :   open, opened



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