stare vs looking at

stare and looking at both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
stare	Yes	No	Yes	No
looking at	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, looking at is a hypernym of stare; that is, looking at is a word with a broader meaning than stare:

stare: a fixed look with eyes open wide
looking at: the act of directing the eyes toward something and perceiving it visually; look

Other hypernyms of stare include look, looking.

stare (noun)	looking at (noun)
a fixed look with eyes open wide	the act of directing the eyes toward something and perceiving it visually; look

stare (verb)	looking at (verb)
fixate one's eyes
look at with fixed eyes