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.
1612		C. Richardson The repentance of Peter and Iudas 116: Againe a number of you that bee hearers come for gapeseede, to gaze the Minister in the face, or to see the variety of mens gifts.
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 .