gazes

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular present of gaze.

   He gazes at the stars for hours on clear nights.

   The old sailor gazes toward the horizon, watching for storms.

   Note

   A verb that normally reaches its object through a preposition: she gazes at the sea, into the fire, upon a sleeping face. Dropping the preposition (he gazes the stars) belongs to poetry rather than everyday prose. The same spelling also serves as the plural of the noun. A determiner settles it: in her gazes or admiring gazes the word means looks, not the act of looking.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of gaze.

   The bright painting drew admiring gazes from everyone passing by.

   Their gazes lingered on the distant mountains long after sunset.

   Note

   Counting looks rather than naming one: admiring gazes, the gazes of a crowd. Each is a fixed, attentive look from a different person or moment. Gaze once also meant the thing looked at, but that use is archaic now. A modern reader will take gazes as looks cast, not as sights seen, unless the writing is deliberately old-fashioned.

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