Mouthed

How to spell mouthed

7 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce mouthed

What does mouthed mean?

1. verbFormed words with the lips, typically without making any sound.
2. verbSaid something in a pompous or insincere way, without real feeling or conviction.

Mouthed in a sentence

• From across the noisy room she mouthed the word "later" so only he could read it.

• The manager mouthed the usual phrases about teamwork but changed nothing.

• He mouthed an apology through the glass partition while the meeting carried on.

• He merely mouthed his thanks and walked off before anyone could reply.

Where does mouthed come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word comes from the Old English muth, meaning the opening in the face used for eating and speaking, and it traces back to a shared Germanic ancestor that also gave Dutch mond and German Mund. The same root reaches further back to an Indo-European source meaning 'to chew', which is why the words for mouth and the act of chewing are kin across so many languages. The verb sense, to form words with the mouth, grew naturally out of the noun, and the past form simply adds the familiar -ed ending. Notice that the verb is pronounced with a voiced 'th', as in 'breathe', even though the noun mouth ends in an unvoiced one; this softening is a regular feature when an English noun turns into a verb. Compounds such as 'loud-mouthed' and 'foul-mouthed' preserve the same form and have been in steady use since at least the 1500s.

How the word is built

• mouth (root, from Old English muth: opening, mouth)
• -ed (past tense / participle suffix)