gaze

American  

[gayz] / geɪz /

verb (used without object)

• gazes,
  present (3rd person singular)
• gazed,
  past participle,  past
• gazing
  present participle

1. 

   to look steadily and intently, as with great curiosity, interest, pleasure, or wonder.

---

noun

• gazes
  plural

1. a steady or intent look.

2. Heraldry. at gaze, (of a deer or deerlike animal) represented as seen from the side with the head looking toward the spectator.

   a stag at gaze.

gaze British  

/ ɡeɪz /

verb

1. (intr) to look long and fixedly, esp in wonder or admiration

---

noun

1. a fixed look; stare

Synonym Usage

Gaze, stare, gape suggest looking fixedly at something. To gaze is to look steadily and intently at something, especially at that which excites admiration, curiosity, or interest: to gaze at scenery, at a scientific experiment. To stare is to gaze with eyes wide open, as from surprise, wonder, alarm, stupidity, or impertinence: to stare unbelievingly or rudely. Gape is a word with uncomplimentary connotations; it suggests open-mouthed, often ignorant or rustic wonderment or curiosity: to gape at a tall building or a circus parade.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• gazer
  noun
• outgaze
  verb (used with object)
• gazeless
  adjective
• ungazing
  adjective
• gazingly
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• gazes
  plural

Participles

• gazing
  present
• gazed
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• gaze
  simple
• gazes
  simple
• have gazed
  perfect
• has gazed
  perfect
• am gazing
  progressive
• are gazing
  progressive
• is gazing
  progressive
• have been gazing
  perfect progressive
• has been gazing
  perfect progressive

Past

• gazed
  simple
• had gazed
  perfect
• was gazing
  progressive
• were gazing
  progressive
• had been gazing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will gaze
  simple
• will have gazed
  perfect
• will be gazing
  progressive
• will have been gazing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of gaze

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English gasen; compare Norwegian, Swedish (dialect) gasa “to look”

Explanation

When someone lays eyes on you and keeps looking, it is a gaze or a stare. You can gaze back or just say, "Take a picture; it lasts longer." Gaze is both a verb and a noun. When people daydream, they often gaze off into the distance without focusing on anything. Another type of gaze, though, is to look very intently at something, as when you gaze at the sky making pictures out of clouds. A contest to see who will blink first means taking a long gaze into someone's eyes, and this type of gaze (the noun) will leave your eyes in a bit of a haze when you're done.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

gaze gazes gazed gazing

He retells his memories with an unflinching gaze.

From Barron's ● Oct. 5, 2026

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has completed an important series of tests showing that it can keep its gaze extremely steady during observations.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 2, 2026

His gaze then drifted once more, devoid of emotion.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026

When you gaze into the black box, the black box calculates how best to gaze back.

From Slate ● Sep. 18, 2026

As soon as everyone had coffee, I sat down just to gaze at him.

From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom

At one point in the clip, the white pup gazes adoringly at the NFL star before hopping onto a couch to snuggle beside him while Kelce lovingly pets the pooch.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 7, 2026

On a boat off the coast of California, Sara Lesser gazes wistfully at dozens of dolphins playing in the vessel's wake.

From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026

In a dream she gazes out from eyes like “great transparent marbles.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026

Ben Martill often gazes out of his window to watch the deer roaming below.

From BBC ● Dec. 25, 2025

She doesn’t say a whole lot to anyone—mostly just gazes out the window at the passing landscape—but the handful of times she and Scoob make eye contact, she smiles at him.

From "Clean Getaway" by Nic Stone

Strong headwinds over the Atlantic delayed it further, but the zeppelin rode smoothly, as the passengers enjoyed multicourse meals, gazed out the generous windows, played chess and wrote postcards.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026

A chocolate brown Great Dane puppy with blue eyes and a teal collar sitting on a tile floor gazed at me from my computer screen — I squealed.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 2026

Kaur appeared visibly upset in the dock as the verdict was read out, while Digwa showed little emotion and gazed out into the courtroom.

From BBC ● May 28, 2026

An American flag waved in the background while various figures gazed up at the president in reverence.

From Barron's ● Apr. 13, 2026

Mr. Pinkerton gazed out, too, for a few moments more, then turned and extended his hand for me to shake.

From "The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan

And so at the Humanoid Games, when one robot sprinter reacted to the starting gun by sitting down, then lying on its back and gazing at the sky, viewers saw a fellow casualty of burnout.

From Slate ● Sep. 27, 2026

"I'm crystal ball gazing and can do it reasonably well on a good day, but nowhere near with the clarity of the nanopore, which gives a comprehensive molecular classification," he said.

From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026

Moving through discussions of Malcolm McDowell’s typecasting and group lessons in Irish, led by Cushla, they will go beyond gazing.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 20, 2026

The youngest son in a hodgepodge home, he wrote this memoir in 1993, gazing over his family’s 20th-century history.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026

“Liars,” the girl said, gazing serenely into the distance.

From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood