gape-mouthed en · ADJ
Etymology
From gape + mouthed.
Meanings
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Overwhelmed with awe or astonishment.
The brain, we are to understand, is sufficiently complex to supoprt higher functions because it is composed of some 10,000,000,000 neurons; and, as if this were not sufficient to leave one gape-mouthed with uncritical awe, it is pointed out that each of these components connects with numerous other components, so that the possible number of sub-units or combinations exceeds the number of atoms in the universe.
2013, Raymond Tallis, Why the Mind Is Not a Computer: A Pocket Lexicon of .Neuromythology, →ISBN:This argument also does Sweden, her king, and Chancellor Oxenstierna a regrettable historical injustice, for it trivializes the gape-mouthed surprise with which most European statesmen greeted the initial successes of the Swedish invaders in 1631.
2004, Paul Douglas Lockhart, Sweden in the Seventeenth Century, →ISBN:Finally there were the fugitive images that imprinted themselves on his fizzling, fading brain as his gape-mouthed head spun in the air: a night sky flocked with gentle clouds; the saffron glow of the lamps along the riverbank; the door to the synagogue garret, flapping open in the breeze.
2014, Crime Files 2014: Volume 2, →ISBN:"You may be wise in your study in the morning,” (says brow-beating Johnson, to his gape-mouthed admirer Boswell,) “ and gay in company at a tavern in the evening.”
1829, The Book of the Boudoir by Lady Morgan. Vol. 1, page 150:
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Having a wide-open mouth.
At the best of times it had been too tight, and now the gape-mouthed face resembled a blue tomato.
2015, Felicity Savage, A Trickster in the Ashes: An Epic Fantasy Adventure:So in the spring my room and that portion of the veranda set aside for the purpose always had at least half a dozen cages and boxes containing gape-mouthed baby birds or birds that I had managed to rescue from the sportsmen and which were recuperating with makeshift splints on wings or legs.
2006, Gerald Durrell, The Corfu Trilogy, →ISBN:A corpse swirled past me, gape-mouthed, fish-white, dull eyed.
2014, Robert Holdstock, Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn, →ISBN:And on the second OOOOOOO, you picture just a naked glowing green skull that hangs there vibrating gape-mouthed in a prison cell.
2012, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Pulphead: Dispatches from the Other Side of America, →ISBN, page 153:
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Having a wide opening.
A gape-mouthed wicker trunk served as a hive.
2008, Solon Timothy Woodward, Cadillac Orpheus: A Novel, →ISBN, page 68:Now the grime-filmed upper-level windows of their facades peered sadly across at each other over gape-mouthed loading bay entrances whose shutters were all jammed somewhere uncommitted between open and closed.
2008, Richard Morgan, Woken Furies, →ISBN:The alien gently manoeuvred the ship out of the gape-mouthed bay.
2014, KS Augustin, Quinten's Revenge, →ISBN:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| more gape-mouthed | Degree=Cmp | lexicographic | |
| most gape-mouthed | Degree=Sup | lexicographic | |
| gapemouthed | alternative | lexicographic |