Whose eyes are watching?

Hey, folks. Long time no see, huh?

As they say - eyes are the window to the soul, what may come from this window? Excitement, anger, curiosity, love... So let's see what our lovely English gives us to express the state of our sight. Bear in mind though, that we'll focus on more prolonged kinds of looking.

Stare

The word means "to look at someone or something for a long time in surprise, curiosity, and so on". "Stare" is quite versatile, we can stare at something for a wide variety of reasons. It can be used to communicate our irritation about someone is looking at us for a long time.

"Don't stare at me like this!"

Let's do some starring contest, shall we?- Allright, you have no chances, fella.

Gaze

This one means "to look steadily", too. It's more about looking in admiration, interest, or daydreaming.

Gaze not upon another man's wife <...>, and approach not her bed. Sirach 41:25.

Beauty in the eyes of the beholder, the most mediocre appearence is transformed by the one's gaze.

Gape

A pretty narrow verb. "To gape at smth" means "to stare in a great surprise with an open mouth". Actually, "to gape" means a wide-open mouth. And, for fuck's sake, don't search this word in Google pictures if you're not interested in other crazy meanings of it.

The ending of "Shattered island" made me gape at the screen for a while.

People gathered and started gaping at the effects of the hurricane.

Glare

Someone's stepped on your foot in the bus, eh? Glare at him - even Steven. As you might've guessed "glare" is about an angry way of starring.

"How did you dare to eat the birthday cake of mine?" - she said and glared daggers at him.

A cold ran down his spine, as the director glared at him.

Peer

You're peering, trying to see what's in the dark corner of your room. "To peer" means "to look narrowly when something is unclear and hard to see".

I peered at the very small hole, trying to put a needle through a thread.

He went to the window and peered out at the coming stranger.

Gloat

It apparently originated from Middle High German glotzen ‘to stare'. It means "to maliciously enjoy another's failure". So in our sense, "to gloat" refers to staring with a deep, hidden, and presumably unwholesome pleasure.

The day she came with a new necklace and a happy look, everyone at the work suspiciously gloated at her.

For those, who didn't win the prize, the only thing's left is to gloat over the others good-for-nothings.

It seems that most of today's lexis starts with a 'g', pretty hilarious, isn't it? I haven't covered all the related words and phrases, but at least now you know, that it's not merely the "gaze" and the "stare".

Stay Helware, cheers!