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gap(1) (iou)



gap noun. [gap] ME.
[Old Norse = 'chasm' (Swedish gap, Danish gab open mouth, opening), rel. to Old Norse gapa GAPE verb.]
A breach in a wall, fence, hedge, etc., caused by violence or natural decay. ME.
M. Mitchell There were wide gaps between the buildings..where dwellings had been shelled or burned. J. T. Story The path led me..through a gap in a high elder hedge.
b. fig. An opening or breach by which an entry, attack, or escape may be effected. M16-M18.
A notch; a small break or opening in an edge or surface. Now rare. LME.
A break or opening in a range of mountains; a gorge, a pass. LME.
R. Boldrewood One of those narrow rocky gaps..over the line of ranges.
b. A hole or chasm in the ground. rare. L17.
A gash or wound in the body. L16-E17.
An unfilled space or interval; a blank; a break in continuity. E17.
A. Sillitoe Through gaps in over-arching branches he could see the stars. B. Emecheta The door opened a little, and someone peered at them through the small gap. fig.: V. Woolf What vast gaps there were, what blank spaces..in her knowledge.
A disparity, an inequality, an imbalance; a (usu. undesirable) divergence in sympathies, understanding, development, etc. M19.
credibility gap, generation gap.
D. H. Lawrence They always kept a gap, a distance between them. J. Barzun The gap between words and experience in the..world of professional educators. Times Literary Supplement The gap that has opened up..between men of science and students of the humanities.
Aeronautics. The vertical distance between the upper and lower wings of a biplane. E20.
Phrases: bridge a gap, close a gap, fill a gap, stop a gap make up a deficiency, supply a want, fill a space.
Comb.: gap-toothed adjective having gaps between the teeth; gap year a period, typically an academic year, taken by a student as a break between school and university or college education.
gappy adjective full of gaps; full of deficiencies: M19.