Mouth
nounThe opening in the face through which a person or animal takes in food and produces speech; by extension, any similar opening such as that of a river or container.
How to spell mouth
5 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce mouth
What does mouth mean?
- nounThe opening in the face through which a person or animal takes in food and produces speech; by extension, any similar opening such as that of a river or container.
- verbTo form words silently with the lips, without producing any sound.
Mouth in a sentence
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noun
The dentist asked her to open her mouth wide.
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verb
From across the noisy room she began to mouth the answer to him.
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noun
The small boat drifted toward the mouth of the river.
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verb
The actor would mouth his lines during the silent rehearsal.
Where does mouth come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
Mouth is a thoroughly native English word, descending from the Old English muth, which named the opening in the face used for eating and speaking. It traces back to the Proto-Germanic muntha, the same ancestor that gave Dutch mond and German Mund, and it is even thought to share a distant root with Latin mentum, meaning 'chin'. The early spelling lost a nasal sound that other Germanic languages kept, which is why English has 'mouth' while German still says 'Mund'. By Middle English the word had broadened well beyond the body, naming the opening of a cave, a bottle, or a river, a sense still alive today. The verb sense, to form words with the lips without making sound, developed later and is marked by a softer, voiced 'th', a quiet difference that the spelling does not show.
How the word is built
- mouth (whole native word, from Old English muth: the bodily opening; no separable prefix or suffix)
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