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gap

Pronunciation: /ɡæp/

The English word “gap” has 20 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. An opening in anything, made by breaking or parting.
  2. An opening allowing passage or entrance.
  3. An opening that implies a breach or defect.
  4. A vacant space or time.
  5. A hiatus, a pause in something which is otherwise continuous.
  6. A vacancy, deficit, absence, or lack.
  7. A mountain or hill pass.
  8. A sheltered area of coast between two cliffs (mostly restricted to place names).
  9. The regions between the outfielders.
  10. The shortfall between the amount the medical insurer will pay to the service provider and the scheduled fee for the item.
  11. The disparity between the indigenous and non-indigenous communities with regard to life expectancy, education, health, etc.
  12. An unsequenced region in a sequence alignment.
  13. The vagina.

verb

  1. To notch, as a sword or knife.
  2. To make an opening in; to breach.
  3. To check the size of a gap.
  4. To surpass (someone or something) by a considerable margin.
  5. To leave suddenly.
  6. To fall or spill open so as to leave a gap.
  7. Of an electric train, to be positioned, or to cause to be positioned, between electrical pickup points, causing loss of power.

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.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.