gap

• enPR: gap, IPA^(key): /ɡæp/

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• Audio (AU)

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• Rhymes: -æp

From Middle English gap, gappe, a borrowing from Old Norse gap (“an empty space, gap, chasm”), related to Danish gab (“an expanse, space, gap”), Old English ġeap (“open space, expanse”), Old Norse gapa (“to gape”); compare gape.

gap (plural gaps)

1. An opening in anything made by breaking or parting.

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

2. An opening allowing passage or entrance.

   We can slip through that gap between the buildings.

3. An opening that implies a breach or defect.

   There is a gap between the roof and the gutter.

4. A vacant space or time.

   I have a gap in my schedule next Tuesday.

5. A hiatus.
   • 2013 August 3, “The machine of a new soul”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:

     The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure. Yet this is the level of organisation that does the actual thinking—and is, presumably, the seat of consciousness.

   I'm taking a gap.

6. A mountain or hill pass.

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

7. (Sussex) 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.

8. (baseball) The regions between the outfielders.

   Jones doubled through the gap.

9. (Australia, for a medical or pharmacy item) The shortfall between the amount the medical insurer will pay to the service provider and the scheduled fee for the item.
   • 2008, Eileen Willis, Louise Reynolds, Helen Keleher, Understanding the Australian Health Care System, page 5,

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

10. (Australia) (usually written as "the gap") The disparity between the indigenous and non-indigenous communities with regard to life expectancy, education, health, etc.
11. (genetics) An unsequenced region in a sequence alignment.

• (opening made by breaking or parting): break, hole, rip, split, tear, rift, chasm, fissure
• (opening allowing passage or entrance): break, clearing, hole, opening
• (opening that implies a breach or defect): space
• (vacant space or time): window
• (hiatus): hiatus
• (mountain pass): col, neck, pass
• (in baseball):

• gap-toothed

• bridge the gap
• gap year
• stand in the gap

gap (third-person singular simple present gaps, present participle gapping, simple past and past participle gapped)

1. (transitive) To notch, as a sword or knife.
2. (transitive) To make an opening in; to breach.
3. (transitive) 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.

gap (plural gaps)

1. Alternative form of gup (elected head of a gewog in Bhutan)

• AGP, APG, GPA, PGA, Pag

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• Rhymes: -ɑp

gap

1. first-person singular present indicative of gappen
2. imperative of gappen

Borrowed from English gap. Related to gapen, gaap, jaap.

gap n (plural gappen, diminutive gapje n)

1. (business) gap

   Synonyms: gat, kloof

Back-formation from gapa (“to open one's mouth wide; to yawn”).

• IPA^(key): /kaːp/
• Rhymes: -aːp

gap n (genitive singular gaps, nominative plural göp)

1. gap, opening

   Synonyms: op, rifa, glufa

gap

1. imperative of gape

Presumably from gapa (“to gape”).

• (12th century Icelandic) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɑp/

gap n (genitive gaps, plural gǫp)

1. gap, empty space
   • Vǫluspá, verse 3, lines 7-8, in 1860, T. Möbius, Edda Sæmundar hins fróða: mit einem Anhang zum Theil bisher ungedruckter Gedichte. Leipzig, page 1:

     […] gap var ginnunga, / en gras hvergi.

     […] gap was of void, / but grass nowhere.

2. (figuratively) shouting, crying, gab
   • Haralds saga herdráða 64, in 1868, C. R. Unger, G. Vigfússon, Flateyjarbok. Udg. efter offentlig foranstaltning, Volume 3. Christiania, page 425:

     […] þar uar suo mikit hareyste og gap […]

     […] there was so much noise and gab […]

• gap in Geir T. Zoëga (1910) A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• gap in An Icelandic-English Dictionary, R. Cleasby and G. Vigfússon, Clarendon Press, 1874, at Internet Archive.
• gap in A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, G. T. Zoëga, Clarendon Press, 1910, at Internet Archive.

• IPA^(key): /ɡap/

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gap m pers

1. (usually in the plural, derogatory) rubbernecker, bystander, passer-by

Because this word inflects as if it contained a terminal [pʲ], which no longer exists in modern Polish and cannot be represented in Polish orthography, the nominative singular form is in practice used only as a lemma in dictionaries. Most native speakers only recognize this word in its inflected forms.

• gap in Polish dictionaries at PWN

gap n

1. chasm or abyss
2. gap; an opening that implies a breach or defect.
3. a mouth, especially when wide open
4. the space between the jaws of a wrench