Skip to content

gaze

verb

  1. to look steadily and intently
L14586 on Wikidata ↗

noun

  1. a steady intent look
L14587 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /ɡeɪz/ / /ˈɡæɪz/

noun

Etymology: From Middle English gasen; akin to Swedish dialectal gasa and Gothic 𐌿𐍃𐌲𐌰𐌹𐍃𐌾𐌰𐌽 (usgaisjan, “to terrify”).

  1. A fixed look; a look of eagerness, wonder, or admiration; a continued look of attention.

    Captain Edward Carlisle, soldier as he was, martinet as he was, felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her steady gaze, her alluring smile; he could not tell what this prisoner might do.

  2. The object gazed on.

    Those howers that with gentle worke did frame / The louely gaze where euery eye doth dwell.

    Made of my Enemies the ſcorn and gaze;

  3. In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the relationship of the subject with the desire to look and awareness that one can be viewed.

    She counters the tendency to focus on critical strategies of resisting the male gaze, raising the issue of the female spectator.

  4. The framework in which a subject is presented, determined by the biases of the creator and/or audience.

    hooks is right to argue that within this culture the ethnographic conceit of a neutral gaze will always be a white gaze, an unmarked white gaze, one which passes its own perspective off as the omniscient

    The American panorama is indicative of the nation's expansion westward and an example of the American gaze.

verb

Etymology: From Middle English gasen; akin to Swedish dialectal gasa and Gothic 𐌿𐍃𐌲𐌰𐌹𐍃𐌾𐌰𐌽 (usgaisjan, “to terrify”).

  1. To stare intently or earnestly.

    They gazed at the stars for hours.

    Why stand ye gazing up into heaven?

  2. To stare at.

    Strait toward Heav'n my wondring Eyes I turnd, / And gaz'd a while the ample Skie

    I searched for form and land For years and years I roamed I gazed a gazeless stare.