lip
Valid in Scrabble
- Scrabble points
- 5
- Words With Friends
- 7
- Letters
- 3
Definition of lip
22 senses · 2 parts of speech · etymology included
noun
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(countable)Either of the two fleshy protrusions around the opening of the mouth.
“[…]thine owne lippes teſtifie againſt thee.”
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noun
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(countable)Either of the two fleshy protrusions around the opening of the mouth.
“[…]thine owne lippes teſtifie againſt thee.”
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(countable)A part of the body that resembles a lip, such as the edge of a wound or the labia.
“[…]I twiſted my thighs, ſqueezed, and compreſs’d the lips of that virgin-ſlit[…]”
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(broadly, countable)The projecting rim of an open container or a bell, etc.; a short open spout.
“The cork sails over the garden wall and lands somewhere no one can see it. A crest of white spills over the lip of the bottle and Niall pours the wine into Elaine's glass.”
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(slang, uncountable)Backtalk; verbal impertinence.
“Don’t give me any lip!”
“Kevin Sutherland: I've had enough of your lip!”
“Loose Tomato grew up tough. No one ever suspected that he was scared every time he walked down the street. Any lip and they got their ass kicked.”
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(countable, uncountable)The edge of a high spot of land.
“We landed at the head of Garden Island, which is situated near the middle of the river and on the lip of the Falls. On reaching that lip, and peering over the giddy height, the wondrous and unique character of the magnificent cascade at once burst upon us.”
“They toiled forward along a tiny path on the river’s lip. Suddenly it vanished. The bank was sheer red solid clay in front of them, sloping straight into the river.”
“Looking to the east we could see Api and the mountains of west Nepal, shapely snow peaks in the distance, while in the immediate foreground, much lower but still dramatic, were the peaks of Panch Chuli IV and V (III was hidden by the lip of a huge cornice), Telkot and Nagling, all of them unclimbed, all steep and challenging.”
- (countable, uncountable)The sharp cutting edge on the end of an auger.
- (countable, uncountable)One of the two opposite divisions of a labiate corolla.
- (countable, uncountable)A distinctive lower-appearing of the three true petals of an orchid.
- (countable, uncountable)One of the edges of the aperture of a univalve shell.
- (colloquial, countable, uncountable)Embouchure: the condition or strength of a wind instrumentalist's lips.
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(abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, colloquial, countable, uncountable)Clipping of lipstick.
“I put on some red lip and a casual print dress.”
- (abbreviation, alt-of)Abbreviation of large igneous province.
- (abbreviation, alt-of)Abbreviation of litigant in person.
verb
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(transitive)To touch or grasp with the lips; to kiss; to lap the lips against (something).
“[…] a hand that Kings / Haue lipt, and trembled kiſſing.”
“Our love was like the bright snow-flakes, Which melt before you pass, Or the bubble on the wine which breaks Before you lip the glass;”
“Once […] at dawn, I heard a bull-moose lipping tree-buds, and lay still in my blanket while the huge beast wandered past, crack! crash! and slop! slop!through the creek […]”
“[…] in a quick swirl the trout lipped a fly beneath the surface with that sort of gigantic delicacy of an elephant picking up a peanut.”
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(figuratively, transitive)To touch lightly.
“He moved the boat onward very slowly, lipping the glossy surface delicately with the light oars.”
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(intransitive, transitive)To wash against a surface, lap.
“It was very soothing and restful up there on the saloon deck, with no sound but the gentle lipping of the water as it rippled against the sides of the steamer.”
“So on I went, and by my side, it seemed, Paced a great bull, kept from me by a brook Which lipped the grass about it as it streamed Over the flagroots that the grayling shook;”
“The mist that lipped against the wall behind him hung overhead like a ceiling, hiding any stars.”
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(intransitive)To rise or flow up to or over the edge of something.
“Below, the swollen Eden, lipping full from bank to bank, rolled yellow and surly to the sea.”
“The rest of the herd were grouped so close to the water’s edge that from time to time a lazy, leaden-green swell would come lipping up and splash them.”
“The sun lipped over the mountain by now, shone on the corrugated-iron roofs of the five sanitary units, shone on the gray tents and on the swept ground of the streets between the tents.”
“Above the spring the little statue of the god Myrddin, he of the winged spaces of the air, stared from between the ferns. Beneath his cracked wooden feet the water bubbled and dripped into the stone basin, lipping over into the grass below.”
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(transitive)To form the rim, edge or margin of something.
“[…] old Macrae, of Adrfeulan Farm near by, had caused rude steps to be cut in the funnel-like hollow rising sheer up from the sloping ledge that lipped the chasm and reached the summit of the scaur.”
“1920, W. E. B. Du Bois, Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil, New York: Harcourt, Brace & Howe, Chapter 9, p. 242, It was a tiny stone house whose front window lipped the passing sidewalk where ever tramped the feet of black soldiers marching home.”
“The woman had slipped to the very edge of the rock—the edge that lipped the fury of the Pit. She was half over. And she was slipping—slipping....”
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(transitive)To utter verbally.
“Salt tears were coming, when I heard my name / Most fondly lipp’d […]”
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(transitive)To simulate speech by moving the lips without making any sound; to mouth.
““Ah, I thought my memory didn’t deceive me!” he lipped silently.”
“And as he read, lipping the words, he thought of his own boyhood […]”
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To make a golf ball hit the lip of the cup, without dropping in.
““I shall find the ball to the left of a patch of sword grass near the hole,” he said. “My second will lip the hole, I know it as well as if I could see the whole thing.””
“Lambert just missed his three; his putt lipped the hole before finishing two feet past it.”
- (transitive)To change the sound of (a musical note played on a wind instrument) by moving or tensing the lips.
Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.
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…
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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”), Latin labium (“lip”).
Words you can make from lip
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