gap (gap)

[ IMG:content-2088.jpg:[blocks in formation] The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia: Dictionary IMG:content-2090.jpg:[blocks in formation] Specifically-2. A deep sloping ravine, notch, or cleft cutting a mountain-ridge. The term is especially common in the central portion of the Appal a chi an range, where such openings are of frequent occurrence and are important features in the topography. The principal gaps have specific names, as Mana as Gap and Thoroughfare Gap in Virginia. Where such a gap is a through cut, penetrating to the mountain's base, and giving pa age, as it then usually does, to a stream, it is called a water - gap, as the Delaware Water - gap in Pennsylvania; when it indents only the upper part of the ridge, it is called a wind - gap. See notch. 3. In general, any hiatus, breach, or interruption of consecutivene or continuity: as, a gap in an argument. If you violently proceed against him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a great gap in your own honour. Shak ., Lear, i. 2. It is seldom that the scheme of his [St. Paul's] discourse makes any gap . Locke , Epistle to Galatians, Pref. There was no gap , no breach, no unrecorded intermediate state of things, between the end of the Roman power and the beginning of the Teutonic power. E. A. Freeman , Amer. Lects., p. 122. 4. See the extract, and break - lathe. A gap is an expedient for... enabling a lathe to take in articles of much greater diameter without materially increasing its weight or general dimensions. C. P. B. Shelley , Workshop Appliances, p. 188. Foliar gap. See foliar . - To stand in the gap, to expose one's self for the protection of something; be prepared to resist a ault or ward off danger. IMG:content-2091.png:[blocks in formation] 2453 May that ground gape , and swallow me alive. Shak., 3 Hen. VI., i. 1. Oh, but your wounds, How fearfully they gape ! and every one To me is a sepulchre. Fletcher , Sea Voyage, ii. 1. He could see A cavern 'mid the cliff gape gloomily. William Morris, Earthly Paradise, III. 360. To gape after. (a) To stare at in wonder, as at something which has just pa ed by. (bt) To stand in eager expectation of; covet; desire; long for. As if thou ware abydande or gapand after sum qwent stirrynge, or sum won dir full felynge ythire than thou hase had. Hampole , Prose Treatises (E. E. T. S.), p. 41. Alwey hir crewel ravyne, devowrynge al that the i han getyn, sheweth other gapynges : that is to seyn, gapen and desyren yit after mo riche es. Chaucer , Boëthius, ii. meter 2. He seeks no honours, gapes after no preferment. Burton , Anat. of Mel., p. 356. What shall we say of those who spend days in gaping after court favour and preferments? Sir R. L'Estrange. To gape at. (a) To stare at in wonder. Ye fools, that wear gay clothes, love to be gap'd at, What are you better when your end calls on you? Fletcher and Rowley , Maid in the Mill, iii. 2. The man that's hang'd preaches his end, And sits a sign for all the world to gape at. (bt) To covet, desire; long for. Fletcher, Bonduc a, iv. 3. Many have gaped at the church revenues; but, before they could swallow them, have had their mouths stopped in the churchyard. South, Sermons. To gape for or upon, to stand in eager expectation of; be ready to take, seize, or devour. All men know that we be here gathered, and with most fervent desire they anheale, breathe, and gape for the fruit of our convocation. Latimer , Sermons and Remains, I. 51. Only the lazy sluggard yawning lies Before thy threshold gaping for thy dole. Carew, Cœlum Britannicum. The thirsty Earth soaks up the Rain, And drinks, and gapes for Drink again. Cowley, Anacreontics, ii. Thou, who gap'st for my estate, draw near; For I would whisper somewhat in thy ear. Dryden, tr. of Persius. IMG:content-2092.jpg:[merged small][graphic] Blue-billed Gaper ( Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchus). 4. A gaping clam; a bivalve mollusk of the family Myida, as Mya truncata. It has a suboval shell, the valves of which gape or dispart and are truncated at the small end and swollen at the other. The surface is wrinkled concentrically and covered with a pale greenish epidermis, which is continued over the siphons. It is a common inhabitant of the North Atlantic coasts, and lives buried in the sand in an upright position, especially at the mouths of rivers and estuaries near low-water mark. At ebb-tide it shows its presence by a hole in the sand left when it withdraws its siphon, and it is found by digging to the depth of a foot or more. These clams are extensively used for the table and for bait. Along the eastern coast of the United States the gaper is commonly known as the soft clam, or in more northern ranges simply as the clam. (See cut under Myidæ.) It has many synonyms in Great Britain: as, at Chi chester, pullet; at Southampton, old - maid; at Belfast, cockle - brill i on; at Dublin, collier; at Youghal, sugar-loon. On the Pacific coast of the United States the term gaper is applied to various similar bivalves, as species of Glycymeris, Saxidomus, and Schizothærus. gape-seed (gäp'sēd), n. That which induces gaping or staring; a cause of ignorant wonder or astonishment; a popular marvel. [Humorous.] These [the Harlequins and Jack-Puddings in Bartholomew Fair], tho' they pretend to be thought fools, will not be the only fools there, nor to be compar'd with those who, in an eager pursuit after diversion, stand with their eyes and their mouths open, to take in a cargo of gape seed , while some a little too nimble for them pick their pockets. Poor Robin , 1735. had given him a cut with a gap'd knife. Sterne , Tristram Shandy, vi. 65. I will never meet at hard-edge with her; if I did I should be confoundedly gapped. Richardson, Sir Charles Grand is on, I. 120. 2. To make a break or opening in, as a fence, a wall, or any ma of matter. Ready! take aim at their leaders - their ma es are gapp'd with our grape. Tennyson, Defence of Lucknow, iii. 3. To cause a hiatus of any kind in; cause to lose consecutivene or continuity. If we omit the semi-tones, these series will represent the five keys of the gapped scale; if we do not omit them, we have the five melodic families of tones, which, like the gapped scale, were developed from a circle of fifths. W. K. Sullivan, Int. to O'Curry's Anc. Irish, p. dlxxiii. gape (gäp or gap), v. i.; pret. and pp. gaped , ppr. gaping . [ gapen , appar. not geapian , or * geapan (which occurs but once in a doubtful glo " geapan, pandere," connected with geap or geap, wide, broad, spacious, used only in poetry), but of Scand. origin, like the related gap; Gape not too wide, lest you disclose your Gums. Congreve, tr. of Ovid's Art of Love. According to the inducing cause of the gaping, the verb, without losing its literal meaning, usually takes on an ad. ditional specific sense. (a) To yawn from sleepine , wearine , or dullne . She stretches, gapes , unglues her eyes, And asks if it be time to rise. Swift . IMG:content-2093.png:[blocks in formation] =Syn. 1. Gaze, etc. See starel. gaping. The mind is not here kept in a perpetual gape after knowledge. Add is on . 2. A fit of yawning: commonly in the plural. Another hour of music was to give delight or the gapes, as real or affected taste for it prevailed. Jane Austen, Persuasion, xx. 3. In zool.: (a) The width of the mouth when opened; the interval between the upper and under mandibles; the rictus, or commi ural line. See first cut under billl. (b) The gap or interval between the valves of a bivalve mollusk where the edges of the valves do not fit together when the shell is shut. See gaper, 4. At the edges of this gape of the shell [of the fresh-water mu el] the thickened margins of a part of the contained body which is called the mantle become visible. Huxley and Martin , Elementary Biology, p. 305. open, as the mouth, or having the open, as in wonder or admiration. Into Robin Hoods gaping mouth He present lie powrde some deale [part]. Robin Hood and the Peddlers (Child's Ballads, V. 247). These gaping wounds, not taken as a slave, Speak Pompey's lo . Fletcher (and another ), False One, i. 1. It is a frivolous pleasure to be the admiration of gaping crowds. Steele , Spectator, No. 188. gapingly (gä'- or gā'ping-li), adv. In a gaping manner; with open-mouthed wonder or curiosity. I hearkened to it by the hour, gapingly hearkened, and let my cigarette go out. The Century , XXVII. 36.