Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. anything considered worthy of pause, an exciting event; esp. in phr. seek, buy or sow gapeseed, to gaze in wonder when one should be getting on with work, business etc.

1598		Florio Worlde of Wordes n.p.: Anfanare . . . to go idly loytring vp and downe as we say, to go seeking for a halfepenie worth of gaping seede.
1600		Nashe Summer’s Last Will and Testament in Works VI (1883–4) 144: If a fellow licensed to beg, / Should all his life time go from faire to faire, / And buy gape-seede, hauing no businesse else.
1698		J. Dunton Teague Land (2003) 127: ’Tis not long since I had done sowing my wild oats, and now I am earnestly hunting after gapeseed.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1724		J. Smedley ‘An Epistle to [...] the Duke of Gratfton’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 149: Where Tea and Coffee, hourly, flow; / And Gape-seed does, in Plenty, grow.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Gapeseed, fights, anything to feed the eye; I am come abroad for a little gape seed.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 170: Johnny Bull, who is fond of a little gape-seed, is endeavouring to console him under his sufferings.
1822		Morn. Post (London) 18 Sept. 1/2: The Waterloo Dragoons [...] after affording gaepseed for two days in the streets [...] returned on the 11th to their quarters .
1837		Morn. Post (London) 11 Feb. 7/3: The Learned Gentleman afforded an ample supply of gape-seed to all the faineants of the city.
1842		Flash (NY) 25 Sept. n.p.: What W.W.B. will ask for a yard of gap seed, as it is in great demand.
1849		Era 29 Apr. n.p.: Like a fool I must go and inspect the premisis [sic] with the rest of the sarchers [sic] arter ‘gape-seed’.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 36: gapeseed Wonderful stories; any thing that will cause people to stop, look, or listen.
1863		Dundee Advertiser 18 July 4/3: Bob Travers arrived with his trainer [...] and after receiving his share of gape-seed, orders were given.
1877		Era 16 Sept. 3/4: His handsome shape caused him to come in for plenty of gapeseed.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890).
1887		Hants. Advertiser 2 Nov. 4/4: The little episode of ‘ducking a trout’ [...] furnished a day’s gapeseed.
1892		Morn. Post (London) 7 Sept. 5/4: Sir Hugo [...] gathered far less ‘gapeseed’ as winner of the Derby than the kingsclere contingent.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 31: Gape Seed, something to astonish.
1908		Hull Dly Mail 5 Nov. 3/2: Gape-Seed. The ordinary Englishman loves a show of any kind [...] In no other couyntry does a crowd collect with so much celerity [etc.].

2. one who stares (with open mouth); the act of staring.

1735		Poor Robin n.p.: Those who, in eager pursuit after diversion, stand with their eyes and their mouths open, to take in a cargo of gape-seed, while some a little too nimble for them pick their pockets [N].
1825		Pierce Egan’s Life in London 24 July 204/2: [T]he gape seed exhibited by the Raws and Yokels, the old women, and the country folks in general, at the rapid movements of the Lunneners, produced a scene not easily to be portrayed.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1885		Sportsman June 23 2/4: The yearlings bred by Messrs. Graham were offered to a rather select audience of buyers, though the ring was surrounded by a fairly strong crowd of gapeseeds .