gapped, ppl. a.
(gæpt)
Also 7 gapt.
[f. gap n.1 or v. + -ed.]
1. Having the edge notched or serrated.
| 1562 Turner Herbal ii. 110 Cinkfoly..hath leues lyke minte..diuided or gapped lyke a saw. 1607 Rowlands Guy, Earl Warw. 5 His broken Launce, gapt Faulchion, batter'd Shield. 1655 Gurnall Chr. in Arm. iii. vi–xviii. ix. ii. (1662) 294 If the Workmans Tools be blunt or gapt, no work can be well done, till a new edge be set on them. 1765 Sterne Tr. Shandy VIII. xxvii, If Mrs. Wadman had given him a cut with a gap'd knife across his finger. 18.. Lowell Kossuth Poet. Wks. (1879) 101 When gapped and dulled her cheaper tools, Then she a saint or prophet sends. |
| fig. 1754 Richardson Grandison (1781) I. xvii. 111, I will never meet at hard-edge with her; if I did..I should be confoundedly gapped. |
2. Broken through at intervals; full of holes or breaches.
| 1854 H. Miller Sch. & Schm. (1858) 238 Its bulging walls and gapped roof, that showed the bare ribs through the breaches. 1864 Carlyle Fredk. Gt. IV. 121 Closing its gapped ranks. 18.. Tennyson Def. Lucknow 42 Take aim at their leaders—their masses are gapp'd with our grape. |
3. Mus. Designating a scale or mode with less than seven notes,
esp. the pentatonic scale.
| 1910 D. Macdonald Irish Music 3 The Ancient Irish used the gapped scale in many of their airs. 1933 Times Lit. Suppl. 2 Mar. 139/1 The gaps in the gapped modes are what gives such modal tunes their decisive character. 1962 Listener 5 July 37/2 The suggestion of gapped scales. |