Etymology Representing oh pronounced with the mouth snapped closed at the end (IPA⁽ᵏᵉʸ⁾: /oʊp/, [oʊp̚]) (excrescent /p/). Compare yep, yup, nope, and welp.
We're Midwesterners. We like long walks through frozen cornfields. Ope! Watch out!2024 January 27, Charlie Berens and Myles Montplaisir, We're Midwesterners:
ope
adj
Etymology From Middle English ope (“open”), shortened form of open, from Old English open (“open”). More at open.
Arriving there, as did by chaunce befall, / He found the gate wyde ope […].1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, VI.6:
We are all weary — faint — set ope the doors — I will to bed! — To-morrow —1819, John Keats, Otho the Great, act 5, scene 5, verses 191-192:
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On Sunday heaven's gate stands ope.[1633], George Herbert, edited by [Nicholas Ferrar], The Temple. Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel; and are to be sold by Francis Green, […], →OCLC:
ope
verb
Etymology From Middle English ope (“open”), shortened form of open, from Old English open (“open”). More at open.
Ere I ope his letter, / I pray you, tell me how my good friend doth.c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
The hour's now come, the very minute bids thee ope thine ear; obey and be attentive.1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:
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There came into many a burgher's pate / A text which says that heaven's gate / Opes to the rich at as easy rate / As the needle's eye takes a camel in!1842, Robert Browning, The Pied Piper of Hamelin:
An order asserted itself, and the hoods on the furnaces were oped wide, and a final march was organized. The wails of the injured and the roars of the dead-on-the-march overwhelmed the tinny speakers in the cell, and they all watched as nearly one thousand people reduced themselves to a few frantic hundred in less than an hour, then settled into a sustained orgy of battery, rapine and rape with no end in sight but the total depopulation of the entire facility.2024 September 28, Harry Blank, “Not Ready for Prime Time”, in Deadlined, →ISBN, page 604:
ope
noun
Etymology From Middle English ope (“open”), shortened form of open, from Old English open (“open”). More at open.
1
West Country An alley or narrow passage (an opening between houses, buildings, etc).
Tonkin's Ope
It formed part of the extensive network of opes across the city which used to carry dock workers down to the quay for work on the boats in the bustling Port of Truro.2018 October 4, Lee Trewhela, “The secrets of Truro’s hidden Carne’s Ope unveiled for the first time in 60 years”, in Cornwall Live:
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Opes / A characteristic that Truro shares with other Cornish towns are the narrow passageways which often form shortcuts between streets. […] These include Roberts Ope, Tippet's Backlet (Tippet was the owner of a fulling mill), Coombe's Lane, Pearson's Ope, Tonkin's Ope, Swifty's Ope, Nalder's Court, Job's Court and Carne's Ope, although this last has now been blocked off by building extensions. Perhaps the most memorable is Squeeze Guts Alley (see separate entry).2021 June 15, John Husband, A-Z of Truro: Places-People-History, Amberley Publishing Limited, →ISBN: