Why stand ye gazing up into heaven? Acts i. 11.

Syn. -- To gape; stare; look. -- To Gaze, Gape, Stare. To gaze is to look with fixed and prolonged attention, awakened by excited interest or elevated emotion; to gape is to look fixedly, with open mouth and feelings of ignorant wonder; to stare is to look with the fixedness of insolence or of idiocy. The lover of nature gazes with delight on the beauties of the landscape; the rustic gapes with wonder at the strange sights of a large city; the idiot stares on those around with a vacant look.

And gazed a while the ample sky. Milton.

With secret gaze
Or open admiration him behold. Milton.

Made of my enemies the scorn and gaze. Milton.

At gaze (a) (Her.) With the face turned directly to the front; -- said of the figures of the stag, hart, buck, or hind, when borne, in this position, upon an escutcheon. (b) In a position expressing sudden fear or surprise; -- a term used in stag hunting to describe the manner of a stag when he first hears the hounds and gazes round in apprehension of some hidden danger; hence, standing agape; idly or stupidly gazing.

I that rather held it better men should perish one by one,
Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in Ajalon! Tennyson.