lip
/lɪp/ noun, verb
Forms lips lipping lipped lipt
- noun (countable) Either of the two fleshy protrusions around the opening of the mouth.
- noun (countable) A part of the body that resembles a lip, such as the edge of a wound or the labia.
- noun (by extension, countable) The projecting rim of an open container or a bell, etc.; a short open spout.
- noun (slang, uncountable) Backtalk; verbal impertinence. “Don’t give me any lip!”
- noun The edge of a high spot of land.
- noun The sharp cutting edge on the end of an auger.
- noun (botany) One of the two opposite divisions of a labiate corolla.
- noun (botany) A distinctive lower-appearing of the three true petals of an orchid.
- verb (transitive) To touch or grasp with the lips; to kiss; to lap the lips against (something).
- verb (transitive, figuratively, of an object) To touch lightly.
- verb (intransitive, transitive) To wash against a surface, lap.
- verb (intransitive) To rise or flow up to or over the edge of something.
- verb (transitive) To form the rim, edge or margin of something.
- verb (transitive) To utter verbally.
- verb (transitive) To simulate speech by moving the lips without making any sound; to mouth.
- verb (sports) To make a golf ball hit the lip of the cup, without dropping in.
Synonyms
labium edge rim spout backchat cheek impudence rudeness insolence sass sassing backtalk back talk mouth brim
Etymology
From Middle English lippe, from Old English lippa, lippe (“lip”), from Proto-West Germanic *lippjō (“lip”), from Proto-Germanic *lepô, from Proto-Indo-European *leb- (“to hang loosely, droop, sag”).
Cognate with Saterland Frisian Lippe (“lip”), West Frisian lippe (“lip”), Dutch lip (“lip”), German Lippe and Lefze (“lip”), Low German Lippe (“lip”), Luxembourgish Lëps (“lip”), Vilamovian łyp (“lip”), Yiddish ליפּ (lip, “lip”), Danish læbe (“lip”), Norwegian Bokmål leppe (“lip”), Norwegian Nynorsk leppa, leppe, lippa, lippe (“lip”), Swedish läpp (“lip”),
Webster’s 1913
- noun One of the two fleshy folds which surround the orifice of the mouth in man and many other animals. In man the lips are organs of speech essential to certain articulations. Hence, by a figure they denote the mouth, or all the organs of speech, and sometimes speech itself.
- noun An edge of an opening; a thin projecting part of anything; a kind of short open spout; as, the lip of a vessel.
- verb To touch with the lips; to put the lips to; hence, to kiss.
- verb To utter; to speak. [R.] Keats.
Etymology [OE. lippe, AS. lippa; akin to D. lip, G. lippe, lefze, OHG. lefs, Dan. læbe, Sw. läpp, L. labium, labrum. Cf. Labial.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “lip”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details