Definition of "ope"

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

On Sunday heaven's gate stands ope.

, 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, […]; reprinted London: Elliot Stock, […], 1885,

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, [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, [Act I, scene ii]

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

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

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