gappy

The child's gappy smile showed where two baby teeth had fallen out.

Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Having gaps or spaces: "gappy" describes something that contains many gaps, holes, or intervals between parts. It is often used to refer to teeth that are not closely set, or to a narrative, argument, or sequence that has missing parts.

Usage Examples

• (Describing teeth that are not touching.)
• (The report had missing sections or incomplete information.)
• (The fence had many openings or absent parts.)

Advanced Usage

• "gappy data": in statistics or computing, data that has missing values or incomplete entries.
  • The dataset was gappy, requiring imputation to fill in the blanks. (The data had many missing points.)
• "gappy prose": writing that lacks coherence or has abrupt transitions.
  • His essay was gappy, jumping from one idea to another without connection. (The prose had logical gaps.)

Variants and Related Words

• Gap (noun): an empty space or interval.
  • There was a gap between the two buildings. (A space or opening.)
• Gappiness (noun): the quality of being full of gaps.
  • The gappiness of the old bridge made it unsafe. (The condition of having many gaps.)

Synonyms

• Holey: having many holes or gaps.
• Fragmented: broken into parts; incomplete.
• Incomplete: lacking some parts; not whole.

Related Idioms

• "fill in the gaps": to provide missing information or complete something.
  • The professor asked the student to fill in the gaps in her argument. (To supply the missing parts.)
• "bridge the gap": to reduce differences or connect two separate things.
  • The new policy aims to bridge the gap between rich and poor. (To connect or lessen the distance.)

Antonyms

• Continuous: without gaps or breaks.
• Dense: closely packed; having no spaces.