How to Use gape in a Sentence

gape

1 of 2 verb
  • Some stuffing gaped out of the rips on the back.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly, 19 Sep. 2025
  • And a gaping hole over the middle of the field.
    — Luca Evans, Denver Post, 21 Oct. 2025
  • What could the world do to fill this gaping hole in chip supply?
    — Rob Toews, Forbes, 7 May 2023
  • Kimiya wailed as the bio-andy moved toward the gaping hole.
    — Jeff Spry, Space.com, 26 June 2026
  • Young men with haggard faces and gaping mouths roamed the streets.
    — Aatish Taseer, New York Times, 9 Nov. 2023
  • Their roster makes sense, with no gaping holes.
    — Tony Blengino, Forbes.com, 20 Jan. 2026
  • Some buildings were left with walls gaping open.
    — Regina Garcia Cano, Fortune, 4 Jan. 2026
  • On my sixth swing, my line landed across the gaping mouth of a sockeye.
    — Kim Cross, Travel + Leisure, 10 Mar. 2026
  • Some buildings have gaping holes blown through the middle of them.
    — Serhii Korolchuk, Washington Post, 28 Oct. 2023
  • And his absence leaves a gaping hole in our nation's soul.
    — Ted Cruz, MSNBC Newsweek, 17 Sep. 2025
  • The letters are jammed in among gaping eyes and open mouths of sometimes skull-like heads.
    — Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times, 18 July 2023
  • Neighbors said the tree went right through the room, leaving a gaping hole in the back.
    — Mark Prussin, CBS News, 17 Mar. 2026
  • Two enormous doors slide open to reveal a dark, gaping space beyond them.
    — Carly Tagen-Dye, People.com, 8 Aug. 2025
  • Left behind was a gaping hole in the roof and fire, smoke and water damage around the house.
    — Ted Scouten, CBS News, 3 Feb. 2026
  • Do poking wires, falling straps, and gaping cups ruin your day?
    — Matthew Kayser, USA Today, 25 Mar. 2026
  • Each death is a daub of paint on a vast canvas, but for the bereaved, each opens up a gaping chasm of grief.
    — Laura King, Los Angeles Times, 17 Oct. 2023
  • Those on board described wind blowing through a gaping hole that showed the night sky and the city lights below.
    — Niraj Chokshi, New York Times, 7 Jan. 2024
  • The tour started with a look at the gaping hole at the back of the home where the porch and its sliding doors once stood.
    — Kirsty Hatcher, PEOPLE, 29 Oct. 2025
  • Above, the roof has caved in multiple times and light from the sky comes through a gaping hole behind the pump.
    — Sara Sidner, CNN, 25 Mar. 2023
  • More like a gaping absence in a show known for its devoted fanbase.
    — Ct Jones, Rolling Stone, 28 Nov. 2023
  • The passenger said his seatbelt saved him from being sucked out of the gaping hole.
    — Cara Tabachnick, CBS News, 22 Mar. 2024
  • The gaping hole in the side of Hope’s real estate office is his first clue.
    — David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 17 May 2026
  • Two plays later, Green ran through a gaping hole to score for a 5-yard touchdown run.
    — al, 25 Aug. 2023
  • Holmes’s bold sweater also revived the cold-shoulder trend, with two gaping holes on the top halves of the sleeves.
    — Chelsey Sanchez, Harper's BAZAAR, 23 June 2023
  • Inside the old asylum, plaster peeled from mottled walls and holes gaped in the ceiling.
    — Jen Rose Smith, CNN Money, 14 Oct. 2025
  • The other struck the back of his upper right arm, pierced the shoulder joint and opened up a gaping hole on the way out.
    — Manuel Canales, Washington Post, 27 Mar. 2023
  • If you’ve been left in a gaping void by the end of Succession, don’t despair.
    — Etan Vlessing, The Hollywood Reporter, 10 June 2023
  • Now, their white, brick, 7,000-square-foot colonial has gaping holes in the roof.
    — Dan Stillman, Washington Post, 30 July 2023
  • About three-fourths of the mayor’s home slid down into gaping rent in the earth, but strangely enough, was not crushed.
    — Merrie Monteagudo, San Diego Union-Tribune, 5 May 2023
  • By 2008 it had been razed, leaving a gaping hole in the city center.
    — Ian Johnson, The New York Review of Books, 4 May 2023

gape

2 of 2 noun
  • I told him to stop staring, that his rather stupid gape was annoying.
  • Bats adjust their mouth gape to zoom their biosonar field of view.
    — Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 8 May 2015
  • Watch their mouths gape open as their pile of goodies dwindles!
    — Fox News, 7 Oct. 2022
  • The boat’s net courses through the water like a gape-mouthed whale shark.
    — Craig Welch, National Geographic, 13 Jan. 2023
  • The fish’s wide-eyed gape takes center stage, mesh tugging at its open mouth.
    — Katherine J. Wu, Smithsonian Magazine, 25 Feb. 2020
  • Rattle the bars with his scream and swallow me into the black of his gape.
    — Lizz Schumer, People.com, 13 Aug. 2025
  • Imagine one with a tie that wraps around your waist so smoothly the tiny hole the belt snakes through never gapes.
    — Elizabeth Wellington, Philly.com, 7 June 2018
  • An enormous cast of the sharp-toothed jaw of a megalodon gapes open, wide and high enough to gobble a grown man.
    — Susan Dunne, courant.com, 3 July 2019
  • Caves a thousand miles apart show the same gape-mouthed, extra-manly drawings.
    — Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 29 Feb. 2012
  • Chick 2, which appears to be smaller with a straighter gape, is Luna.
    — Chelsea Hylton, CBS News, 1 May 2026
  • The researchers questioned whether there is even an upper limit to the gape of some of the very biggest pythons.
    — Christian Edwards, CNN, 7 Oct. 2022
  • Chick 1, which has been identified as being larger with a slight curve to its gape, is Sandy.
    — Chelsea Hylton, CBS News, 1 May 2026
  • In the portrait, Hemingway scans the distance; his tie and collar gape at the neck.
    — Elizabeth Djinis, Smithsonian Magazine, 1 Apr. 2021
  • Exit wounds gape open on enemies hit by headshots, their lifeless eyes staring blankly.
    — WIRED, 18 Oct. 2022
  • Pythons had a 4 to 6 times greater maximal gape area than similarly-sized brown tree snakes.
    — Margaret Osborne, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 Dec. 2022
  • Their lower jaws can unhinge to give them a massive gape and their flexible skulls are made of bones that can move against each other.
    — Ed Yong, Discover Magazine, 1 Mar. 2010
  • At times, the actor feels more like a design element, akin to the marble coffins and gape-mouthed friezes of this gothic world.
    — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 30 Aug. 2025
  • Its fins flare, its mouth gapes and its body spasms as the metal filament proceeds along the length of its spine, destroying nerves.
    — The Economist, 4 Oct. 2019
  • Lines snake around almost every tent, inside of which crowds gape at the latest iteration of the revered god.
    — Geeta Anand, New York Times, 15 Sep. 2016
  • The gape-mouthed expression of these primates has long been considered an act of yawning or stretching.
    — Josie Garthwaite, Discover Magazine, 28 Oct. 2012
  • Chick 1, now Sandy, is larger, with a larger head and neck and a slight curve to its gape, the yellow corners of the mouth.
    — Michelle Del Rey, USA Today, 1 May 2026
  • The shop’s door is open to the street, attracting customers who glimpse something intriguing, step inside and stop to gape.
    — Mary Carole McCauley, baltimoresun.com, 13 Apr. 2021
  • Picturesque anytime of year, that route is especially gape-worthy in fall, when the trees flaunt their brilliant golds and reds.
    — Jeanine Barone, WSJ, 10 June 2021
  • Memory foam cups give your boobs a natural lift and help prevent gape for optimal comfort.
    — Susan Brickell, Health.com, 14 Oct. 2021
  • As the happy, purposeful crowd pushes into school, the bully is left to gape and blush, alone and ostracized.
    — Meghan Cox Gurdon, WSJ, 27 Apr. 2018
  • Head there for a quieter gape at the astonishing mortar-free construction.
    — Helen Brown, TheWeek, 30 Apr. 2026
  • These days, the gap gapes, and family harmony usually calls for some forbearance on both sides.
    — New York Times, 21 Jan. 2020
  • The duck face, the fish gape, the vague arm raise – getting a likeable Inta involves a lot of really random trends.
    — Kelsey Stiegman, Seventeen, 24 Jan. 2018
  • But that vision belongs in the realm of rapturous poetry, not for us film lovers to gape in awestruck amazement at the foolishness.
    — Los Angeles Times, 24 Sep. 2021
  • Doors gape, the family’s possessions are exposed to the weather, and humans are absent.
    — Ben Davis, The New York Review of Books, 25 Apr. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'gape.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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