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gap

nounverbnounverbcommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ɡap//
  • Australia//ɡæp//
  • New Zealand//ɡɛp//

An opening in anything, made by breaking or parting.

noun

  1. 1

    An opening in anything, made by breaking or parting.

    He made a gap in the fence by kicking at a weak spot.

  2. 2

    An opening allowing passage or entrance.

    We can slip through that gap between the buildings.

  3. 3

    An opening that implies a breach or defect.

    There is a gap between the roof and the gutter.

  4. 4

    A vacant space or time.

    I have a gap in my schedule next Tuesday.

  5. 5

    A hiatus, a pause in something which is otherwise continuous.

    I'm taking a gap.

    You must wait for a gap in the traffic before crossing the road.

  6. 6

    A vacancy, deficit, absence, or lack.

    Their departure has left a gap in the workforce.

    Find words to fill the gaps in an incomplete sentence.

    She has a gap in her teeth.

    But there is a wide gap between the dollars being invested in creators and the respect that is paid to them. It is time to take influencers seriously.

  7. 7

    A mountain or hill pass.

    The exploring party went through the high gap in the mountains.

  8. 8

    A sheltered area of coast between two cliffs (mostly restricted to place names).

    At Birling Gap we can stop and go have a picnic on the beach.

  9. 9

    The regions between the outfielders.

    Jones doubled through the gap.

  10. 10

    The shortfall between the amount the medical insurer will pay to the service provider and the scheduled fee for the item.

    Under bulk billing the patient does not pay a gap, and the medical practitioner receives 85% of the scheduled fee.

  11. 11

    The disparity between the indigenous and non-indigenous communities with regard to life expectancy, education, health, etc.

  12. 12

    An unsequenced region in a sequence alignment.

  13. 13

    slangThe vagina.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English gap /gappe, from Old Norse gap (“an empty space, gap, chasm”), from gapa (“to gape, scream”), from Proto-Germanic *gapōną, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰeh₂- (“to open wide, gape”). Related to Danish gab (“an expanse, space, gap”), Old English ġeap (“open space, expanse”). Doublet of gape.

verb

  1. 1

    To notch, as a sword or knife.

  2. 2

    To make an opening in; to breach.

  3. 3

    To check the size of a gap.

    I gapped all the spark plugs in my car, but then realized I had used the wrong manual and had made them too small.

  4. 4

    slangTo surpass (someone or something) by a considerable margin.

    Honestly K&C could release today with like a bit more SOT buffs and they'd probably still gap a lot of the game

    sometimes dril gets absolutely gapped by average ukraine war reddit comments

    Imagine street racing someone then suddenly both of you get gapped by a slammed tiger tank 😂 AKA der "Drippenwagen"

    "Not really the reason his team lost" is still not showing up by Chovy's standarts. Like in a way you're downplaying how good this guy has been domestically the last 3-4 years. He is comfortably the best player in the league and is utterly gapping every other midlaner in the league series after series, year after year.

  5. 5

    slangTo leave suddenly.

    [Article title:] 'They've just gapped it': Duo fled quarantine authorities after gang funeral

  6. 6

    To fall or spill open so as to leave a gap.

    The robe gaps open at the waist, breasts spilling out of a lacy bra that looks like she might have had it since her college days.

  7. 7

    Of an electric train, to be positioned, or to cause to be positioned, between electrical pickup points, causing loss of power.

    The lights flickered as the train momentarily gapped.

    The train was gapped just outside the station, and passengers were stranded for nearly two hours.

noun

  1. 1

    Variant of gupAlternative form of gup (“elected head of a gewog in Bhutan”).

Etymology

From gup.

verb

  1. 1

    datedTo stare or gape.

    Well, dey would all begin stretchin' and gappin', and den some of dem would say, with a gap and another stretch: […]

Etymology

A variant of gape.

Forms

plural
gaps
past tense
gapped
past participle
gapped
present participle
gapping
third person singular
gaps
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).