béer

A rare, mostly literary verb meaning to gape wide open — today it survives almost entirely in two fossilized forms: the fixed expression bouche bée (open-mouthed with astonishment) and the adjective béant (gaping, e.g. un gouffre béant). Using béer itself as a live conjugated verb sounds archaic.

• Elle est restée bouche bée devant le résultat. — She was left open-mouthed at the result.
• Un gouffre béant s'ouvrait devant eux. — A gaping chasm opened up in front of them.
• La foule béait devant le spectacle. — The crowd gaped at the spectacle.

Almost nobody conjugates béer directly in modern French — reach for bouche bée and béant instead of forcing an active form like *il bée.

• expression bouche bée — The common idiom for being left open-mouthed with astonishment — "bée" is the fossilized past participle of béer, first attested in this sense in 1121.