lip

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 West Frisian lippe (“lip”), Dutch lip (“lip”), German Lippe and Lefze (“lip”), Swedish läpp (“lip”), Norwegian leppe (“lip”), Danish læbe (“lip”), Latin labium (“lip”).

noun

1. (countable) Either of the two fleshy protrusions around the opening of the mouth.
2. (countable) A part of the body that resembles a lip, such as the edge of a wound or the labia.
3. (by extension, countable) The projecting rim of an open container; 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. 2018, Sally Rooney, “Six Months Later (July 2013)”, in Normal People
4. (slang, uncountable) Backtalk; verbal impertinence.
   Don’t give me any lip!
   Kevin Sutherland: I've had enough of your lip! May 1 2008, Damon Beesley, Iain Morris, The Inbetweeners, I:ii: “w:Bunk Off”,
   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. 1977, Larry Mitchell, The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions, Calamus Books; republished New York: Nightboat Books, 2020, page 97
5. 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. 1894, David Livingstone, “Chapter VII”, in A Popular Account of Dr Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries
   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. 1999, Harish Kapadia, “Ascents in the Panch Chuli Group”, in Across Peaks & Passes in Kumaun Himalaya, New Delhi: Indus Publishing Company, page 136
6. The sharp cutting edge on the end of an auger.
7. (botany) One of the two opposite divisions of a labiate corolla.
8. (botany) The distinctive petal of the Orchis family.
9. (zoology) One of the edges of the aperture of a univalve shell.
10. (music, colloquial) Embouchure: the condition or strength of a wind instrumentalist's lips.

verb

1. (transitive) To touch or grasp with the lips; to kiss; to lap the lips against (something).
   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
   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. (transitive, figurative) (of something inanimate) 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. (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. 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 1922, John Masefield, The Dream, London: Heinemann, page 9
   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. (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. 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
   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. (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. 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.
   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. (transitive) To utter verbally.
7. (transitive) To simulate speech by moving the lips without making any sound; to mouth.
   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. (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. (transitive, music) To change the sound of (a musical note played on a wind instrument) by moving or tensing the lips.