Lips
nounThe two soft, fleshy folds forming the edges of the mouth.
How to spell lips
4 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce lips
What does lips mean?
- nounThe two soft, fleshy folds forming the edges of the mouth.
- nounThe projecting edges or rims of containers such as jugs or cups.
Lips in a sentence
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The cold wind left her lips dry and chapped.
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The lips of the two jugs were chipped after years of use.
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He pressed his lips together and said nothing.
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Water dripped from the lips of the cracked mugs.
Where does lips come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This word descends from the Old English 'lippa', the native Anglo-Saxon term for the soft, fleshy edges of the mouth. It belongs to a wide family of Germanic relatives, including the Dutch 'lip' and the German 'Lippe', and shares a deeper ancestry with the Latin 'labium', which also meant 'lip' and survives in modern words like 'labial'. The spelling has stayed remarkably stable over the centuries, partly because the word is short and high frequency. The plural simply adds '-s', as the two lips are almost always referred to together. Its straightforwardness in spelling reflects how deeply rooted it is in everyday English.
How the word is built
- lip (the soft fleshy border of the mouth)
- -s (plural)
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