lip
verbEtymology 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”).
9 senses
- 1To touch or grasp with the lips; to kiss; to lap the…
- 2To touch lightly.
- 3To wash against a surface, lap.
- 4To rise or flow up to or over the edge of something.
- 5To form the rim, edge or margin of something.
- 6To utter verbally.
- 7To simulate speech by moving the lips without making any…
- 8To make a golf ball hit the lip of the cup, without dropping in.
- 9To change the sound of (a musical note played on a wind…
1
To touch or grasp with the lips; to kiss; to lap the lips against (something).
- […] a hand that Kings / Haue lipt, and trembled kiſſing.c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene v], page 348, column 1:
- 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;1826 March, Winthrop Mackworth Praed, “Josephine”, in The New Monthly Magazine, volume 16, number 63, page 308:
2 more examples
- 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 […]1901, Robert W. Chambers, chapter 9, in Cardigan, New York: Harper, published 1902, page 130:
- […] 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.1929, William Faulkner, “June Second 1910”, in The Sound and the Fury, New York: Vintage, published 1956, page 144:
2
Figuratively, Of an object To touch lightly.
- He moved the boat onward very slowly, lipping the glossy surface delicately with the light oars.1971, Iris Murdoch, An Accidental Man, New York: Viking, page 405:
3
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.1898, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 10, in The Tragedy of the Korosko, London: Smith, Elder & Co., page 324:
- 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;1922, John Masefield, The Dream, London: Heinemann, page 9:
1 more example
- The mist that lipped against the wall behind him hung overhead like a ceiling, hiding any stars.2008, Julie Czerneda, Riders of the Storm, New York: Daw Books, Interlude, page 406:
4
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.1903, Robert Barr, Over the Border, London: Isbister, Book 4, Chapter 7, p. 375:
- 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.1911, Charles G. D. Roberts, “Mothers of the North”, in Neighbors Unknown, U.S. edition, New York: Macmillan, page 256:
2 more examples
- 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.1939 April 14, John Steinbeck, chapter 22, in The Grapes of Wrath, New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press, →OCLC, page 311:
- 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.1973, Mary Stewart, The Hollow Hills, New York: William Morrow, Book I, Chapter 3, p. 26:
5
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.1894, Fiona Macleod, chapter 4, in Pharais, Derby, page 88:
- 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.
1 more example
- 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....1924, James Oliver Curwood, chapter 3, in A Gentleman of Courage, New York: Cosmopolitan, page 36:
6
To utter verbally.
- Salt tears were coming, when I heard my name / Most fondly lipp’d […]1818, John Keats, “Book I”, in Endymion: A Poetic Romance, London: […] T[homas] Miller, […] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, page 48, lines 964–965:
7
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.1886 May – 1887 April, Thomas Hardy, chapter XIII, in The Woodlanders […], volume III, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1887, →OCLC, page 274:
- And as he read, lipping the words, he thought of his own boyhood […]1980, Cyril Dabydeen, “Mammita’s Garden Cove”, in Caribbean New Wave: Contemporary Short Stories, London: Heinemann, published 1990, page 65:
8
Hobbies, Lifestyle, Sports 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.”1910 March, Fred M. White, “A Record Round”, in The Windsor Magazine:
- Lambert just missed his three; his putt lipped the hole before finishing two feet past it.1999, J. M. Gregson, chapter 9, in Malice Aforethough, Sutton: Severn House, page 112:
9
Entertainment, Lifestyle, Music To change the sound of (a musical note played on a wind instrument) by moving or tensing the lips.