mouth

Etymology

From Middle English mouth, from Old English mūþ, from Proto-West Germanic *munþ, from Proto-Germanic *munþaz (“mouth”), from Proto-Indo-European *ment- (“to chew; jaw, mouth”). Cognate with Scots mooth (“mouth”), North Frisian müd, müth, müss (“mouth”), West Frisian mûn (“mouth”), Dutch mond (“mouth”), muide (“river mouth”) and mui (“riptide”), German Mund (“mouth”), Swedish mun (“mouth”), Norwegian munn (“mouth”), Danish mund (“mouth”), Faroese muður, munnur (“mouth”), Icelandic munnur (“mouth”), Gothic 𐌼𐌿𐌽𐌸𐍃 (munþs, “mouth”), Latin mentum (“chin”) and mandō (“to chew”), Ancient Greek μάσταξ (mástax, “jaws, mouth”) and μασάομαι (masáomai, “to chew”), Albanian mjekër (“chin, beard”), Welsh mant (“jawbone”), Hittite [script needed] (mēni, “chin”). The verb is from Middle English mouthen, from the noun.

noun

1. (anatomy) The opening of a creature through which food is ingested.
   "Open your mouth and say 'aah'," directed the doctor.
   I made a speaking trumpet of my hands and commenced to whoop “Ahoy!” and “Hello!” at the top of my lungs. […] The Colonel woke up, and, after asking what in brimstone was the matter, opened his mouth and roared “Hi!” and “Hello!” like the bull of Bashan. 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 7, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
2. The end of a river out of which water flows into a sea or other large body of water.
   The mouth of the river is a good place to go birdwatching in spring and autumn.
3. An outlet, aperture or orifice.
   The mouth of a cave
   ‘It was called the wickedest street in London and the entrance was just here. I imagine the mouth of the road lay between this lamp standard and the second from the next down there.’ 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess
   But why give a tunnel mouth any decoration whatsoever? August 26 2020, Tim Dunn, “Great railway bores of our time!”, in Rail, page 42
4. (slang) A loud or overly talkative person.
   My kid sister is a real mouth; she never shuts up.
5. (saddlery) The crosspiece of a bridle bit, which enters the mouth of an animal.
6. (obsolete) A principal speaker; one who utters the common opinion; a mouthpiece.
7. (obsolete) Speech; language; testimony.
8. (obsolete) A wry face; a grimace; a mow.

verb

1. (transitive) To speak; to utter.
   He mouthed his opinions on the subject at the meeting.
   mouthing big phrases
2. (transitive) To make the actions of speech, without producing sound.
   One was of a face repeatedly mouthing the vowel sound eee, the other was of a face repeatedly mouthing the vowel sound ahhh. 2010, Jan Faull, Jennifer McLean Oliver, Amazing Minds
   It should be explained that lip patterns are generally not the same as patterns which would be made by 'mouthing' words. 2016, Wayne Morris, Theology without Words: Theology in the Deaf Community
   "So very hot,” I mouthed at myself in the mirror. 2020, Wanitta Praks, Maid to the Mafia
   The prompter mouthed the words to the actor, who had forgotten them.
3. To form with the mouth.
   But words are nothing to the misbelieving -- mere air mouthed into a sound. 1886, James Hogg, Polmood series, page 51
   There was also a close temporal contiguity between "smiling" or other "emotional" grimaces and mouthing and tonguing movements, so that it was often difficult to distinguish between mouthing and smiling. 1987, Peter H. Wolff, The Development of Behavioral States and the Expression of Emotions in Early Infancy, page 15
4. (transitive, intransitive) To utter with a voice that is overly loud or swelling.
   Those who endeavor to become eloquent by mere imitation of some celebrated model—an actor for instance—often attempt to gain this quality by altering their voice in an unnatural manner. Such a process never produces any thing but mouthing. 1846, Erasmus Darwin North, Practical Speaking: As Taught in Yale College, page 123
   This view of voice cultivation excludes all mouthing and ranting which have been thought to be necessary incidents of voice culture. 1902, George Andrew Lewis, The Practical treatment of stammering and stuttering, page 195
5. To exit at a mouth (such as a river mouth)
   In this part of the address the position of the principal hanging-valleys was indicated , and it was pointed out that there were two sets, namely those which mouthed into valleys that had been deepened in softer rocks, and those which mouthed into portions of main valleys that had been deepened along shatter-bolts. 1906, Philosophical Magazine, page 96
   Suddenly an avalanche of stones turned loose right down a ravine and mouthed out on the road, stones large enough to knock a horse down, or larger, and a plenty of them to do a fair job on a large group. 1999, T. Walter Middleton, Qualla: Home of the Middle Cherokee Settlement, page 39
6. (transitive) To pick up or handle with the lips or mouth, but not chew or swallow.
   She alighted and mouthed over several within a small space and a short time; and these buds were not at the bottom of the hedge; nor was she searching for a nest-site. 1887 September, Charles Robson, “Natural History Jottings: On Wasps, chiefly”, in Mordecai Cubitt Cooke, John Eller Taylor, editors, Hardwicke's Science-gossip, number 273, page 210
   His manner of feeding was curious, any fish he was provided with not being snapped up immediately, but played with and mouthed all over for a quarter of an hour or more, when it suddenly disappeared as if by magic. 1889, Francis Henry Hill Guillemard, The Cruise of the Marchesa to Kamschatka & New Guinea, page 165
   He would not touch any of our food that the bears had pawed and mouthed over, fearing it might be bad medicine for him, so some was got for him from Red Wing Woman. 1920, James Willard Schultz, The Dreadful River Cave: Chief Black Elk's Story, page 50
   Everyone is kind of aroused, Thanatz is sitting up on the bar having his own as yet unsheathed penis mouthed by one of the white-gloved Wends. 1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
   She found foamy saliva where the coyote had mouthed over the dogs, but no place showed any bite. 1999, Laura Tice Lage, Sagebrush Homesteads, page 257
   The fish mouthed the lure, but didn't bite.
7. To take into the mouth; to seize or grind with the mouth or teeth; to chew; to devour.
   Sometimes I ate food that the rats had already mouthed over; picking away the edges where they had been eating and using the remainder; not with any good grace, not without qualms; but because I had nothing else to eat. 1938, Jack Common, Seven Shifts, page 62
   Each contained a long, wide, solid oak table around which all who could find a space the width of his body would mouth his brown-bag grub from home. 1998, Marvin K. Rubin, Word of Mouth: A Manhattan Dentist Tells All-- (well, Almost), page 77
8. To form or cleanse with the mouth; to lick, as a bear licks her cub.
   They were sucking off whatever adhered to the floating stems and leaves of the plants. They went from plant to plant and mouthed over each branch from base to tip until the whole plant had been gone over. 1915, Bulletin of the Bureau of Fisheries - Volume 33, page 224
   Meanwhile she, and the male, mouthed over the inner surface of pot until it was as clean as could be. 1937, Aquarium Journal - Volume 10, Issue 5, page 7
   Before egg-laying begins, the spawning grounds are mouthed over (cleaned) by both sexes. 1965, The Aquarist and Pondkeeper - Volumes 30-31, page 182
   Small slobs of things, wet and sticky, which Peggy herself distastefully mouthed out from her cavity, biting the cord which bound them to her, swallowing it, then licking the puppies clean one by one. 1970, Christine Weston, The Hoopoe, page 6
9. To carry in the mouth.
   This transfer system continues until the young are free-swimming, which may be for another 3 or 4 days. Each time they are moved to a new pit, they are mouthed over and spat into their new crèche. 1953, Clifford Walter Emmens, Keeping and Breeding Aquarium Fishes, page 154
10. (obsolete) To make mouths at
    He drew the cork from his bottle..and mouthed at his companions even while he bowed to them. 1827, Benjamin Disraeli, Vivian Grey
    Meanwhile, the tyrant, with untimely wit And mouthing face, derides the small one's moan, Who, all lamenting for his loss, doth sit, 1854, Thomas Hood, “The Irish Schoolmaster”, in Poems of Thomas Hood, volume 2, page 40
    And that other face -- that awful, gibbering, mouthing face she drew away. 1873, May Agnes Fleming, A Wonderful Woman, page 269
    But active as this old professor of the dance was, he had when a child in Paris, in 1793, seen Marie Antoinette on the way to the scaffold, and described the unfortunate queen, with her gray hair cut short, her hands tied, seated in the cart, still retaining her calm demeanour as the mob shouted and mouthed around her . 1883, Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower, My Reminiscences - Volume 1, page 148
    The man mouthed at the bars. He was half-mad, I think, in that one minute. 1906, Bernard Edward Joseph Capes, At a Winter's Fire, page 240
    What ensues next is a comical soundless argument only true parents will understand. It's all mouthing and miming, facial expression and hand flailing. 2014, Emma Chase, Tied
11. To form a mouth or opening in.
    The front end of the barrel has to be mouthed out conically, so that the various centre points may fit it. 1773, Paul. N. Hasluck, “Lathe-Making For Amateurs”, in Amateur work, illustrated - Volume 1, page 426
    The front collar must be mouthed out as shown, to take the second cone on the mandrel. 1882, Paul Nooncree Hasluck, The Metal Turner's Handbook, page 76
    The cutting edge of a shaving cutter should be mouthed out slightly with a fine oilstone. 1956, Mechanical World and Engineering Record - Volume 136, page 471
12. (sheep husbandry) To examine the teeth of.
    Either at the shipping point or as they leave the summer range, the older ewes are “mouthed out.” That is, their mouths are examined to see if their teeth are good for another year. 1938, Byron Hunter, Harry W. Pearson, Alonzo Frederick Vass, Type of Farming and Ranching Areas in Wyoming, page 96
    No information could be found on the relationship between the productivity of ewes and the states of their mouths. While there is no doubt that the practice of “mouthing" ewes is founded on experience, the traditional standards may require modification since the adoption almost exclusively of grassland farming, particularly in the North Island. 1957, The New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology, page 587
    After we got the ewes "mouthed out," we turned them over to the herder that Foncy had hired to drive them to Shaniko. 1976, Oregon Historical Society, Oregon Historical Quarterly, page 27
    Daniels told complainants in substance he would not buy any sheep without mouthing them. 1977, United States. Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Decisions, page 1141