different between glimpse vs gape

English

Alternative forms

• glinse
• glimse (obsolete)

Etymology

From earlier glimse, from Middle English glimsen (“to glisten, be dazzling, glance with the eyes”), akin to Middle High German glimsen (“to glow, smoulder”), Middle High German glinsen (“to shine, glimmer”), Middle Dutch glinsen and Middle Low German glinsen, glintzen, glinzen (“to shine, shimmer”), Dutch glinsteren (“to glitter, sparkle, shimmer, glint, glance”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?l?mps/
• Rhymes: -?mps

Noun

glimpse (plural glimpses)

1. A brief look, glance, or peek.
   • 1798, Samuel Rogers, An Epistle to a Friend

     Here hid by shrub-wood, there by glimpses seen.

   • Selwyn, sitting up rumpled and cross-legged on the floor, after having boloed Drina to everybody's exquisite satisfaction, looked around at the sudden rustle of skirts to catch a glimpse of a vanishing figure—a glimmer of ruddy hair and the white curve of a youthful face, half-buried in a muff.

2. A sudden flash.
3. A faint idea; an inkling.

Translations

Verb

glimpse (third-person singular simple present glimpses, present participle glimpsing, simple past and past participle glimpsed)

1. (transitive) To see or view briefly or incompletely.

   I have only begun to glimpse the magnitude of the problem.

2. (intransitive) To appear by glimpses.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Drayton to this entry?)

Synonyms

• perceive, notice, detect, espy, spot, catch sight of

Translations

Anagrams

• megilps

English

Etymology

Middle English gapen, from Old Norse gapa (“to gape”) (compare Swedish gapa, Danish gabe), from Proto-Germanic *gap?n? (descendants Middle English geapen, Dutch gapen, German gaffen), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *???h?b-. Cognates include Russian ???? (zjapa).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??e?p/
• Rhymes: -e?p

Verb

gape (third-person singular simple present gapes, present participle gaping, simple past and past participle gaped)

1. (intransitive) 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;
2. (intransitive) To stare in wonder.
3. (intransitive) To open wide; to display a gap.
   • c. 1591, William Shakespeare, Third Part of King Henry VI, Act 1, Scene 1, 1807, Samuel Johnson, George Steevens (editors),The plays of William Shakspeare, Volume X, page 291,

     May that ground gape, and swallow me alive, / Where I shall kneel to him who slew my father!

   • 1662, Henry More, An Antidote Against Atheism, Book II, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More, p. 74:

     "Nor is he deterr'd from the belief of the perpetual flying of the Manucodiata, by the gaping of the feathers of her wings, (which seem thereby less fit to sustain her body) but further makes the narration probable by what he has observed in Kites hovering in the Aire, as he saith, for a whole hour together without any flapping of their wings or changing place."

   • a. 1699, John Denham, Cato Major, Of Old Age: A Poem, 1710, page 25,

     The hungry grave for her due tribute gapes:

4. (intransitive, of a cat) To open the passage to the vomeronasal organ, analogous to the flehming in other animals.
5. (pornography) To depict a dilated anal or vaginal cavity upon penetrative sexual activity.

Translations

Noun

gape (countable and uncountable, plural gapes)

1. (uncommon) An act of gaping; a yawn.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Addison to this entry?)

2. A large opening.
3. (uncountable) A disease in poultry caused by gapeworm in the windpipe, a symptom of which is frequent gaping.
4. The width of an opening.
5. (zoology) The maximum opening of the mouth (of a bird, fish, etc.) when it is open.

Derived terms

• agape

Translations

Anagrams

• PAGE, Page, page, peag

Dutch

Verb

gape

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of gapen

Anagrams

• page

Northern Sotho

Adverb

gape

1. again

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From Old Norse gapa

Verb

gape (imperative gap, present tense gaper, passive gapes, simple past gapa or gapte, past participle gapa or gapt, present participle gapende)

1. to gape (of a mouth, hole, wound etc., be wide open)

   gap opp! - open wide! (e.g. at the dentist)

References

• “gape” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Alternative forms

• gapa

Etymology

From Old Norse gapa

Verb

gape (present tense gapar or gaper, past tense gapa or gapte, past participle gapa or gapt, passive infinitive gapast, present participle gapande, imperative gap)

1. to gape (of a mouth, hole, wound etc., be wide open)

References

• “gape” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.