gape at

gape at (someone or something)

To stare at someone or something in surprise, typically with the mouth open. I have some great pictures of the kids gaping at the giraffes at the zoo. It probably wasn't the best reaction, but I was so shocked that I could only gape at Mary when she told me she was pregnant.
See also: gape
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

gape at someone or something

to stare at someone or something in wonder. Don't just stand there, gaping at me. Come in. Stop gaping at the storm clouds and get in here.
See also: gape
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • gape
  • gape at (someone or something)
  • goggle at
  • goggle at (someone or something)
  • gapeseed
  • goggle-eyed
  • gawk
  • gawk at
  • gawk at (someone or something)
  • fix (one) with a stare
References in classic literature
Like those who stand in the street and gape at the passers-by: thus do they also wait, and gape at the thoughts which others have thought.
Thus Spake Zarathustra
That meaning at least, while he gaped, it offered him; for he could but gape at his other self in this other anguish, gape as a proof that HE, standing there for the achieved, the enjoyed, the triumphant life, couldn't be faced in his triumph.
Jolly Corner
All of these people stared at me, talked about me, ran into the huts and fetched out their families to gape at me; but no- body ever noticed that other fellow, except to make him humble salutation and get no response for their pains.
Connecticut Yankee
I was surprised how well it actually works - it didn't gape at all and was really comfortable.
Big girls blouses; Two Scots try out the shirt designed to stop busty women popping out
Mules helped gold miners reach claims, tourists gape at spectacular views, conservationists locate natural wonders, the Sierra Club find wilderness worth saving, hunters spot game, and Federal Land Management surveyors lay out tracts to preserve.
Jackson, Louise A. The mule men; a history of stock packing in the Sierra Nevada
When local audiences go to see King's stable of thoroughbred dancers in his own company, LINES Contemporary Ballet, with their gorgeously attenuated limbs and hands hanging rapturously from the wrist, they are going as much to gape at the sublime bodies as to meet King's splintered choreography.
OAKLAND BALLET