lip
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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3 characters
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English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "lip", 3-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "lip" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "lip" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
lip is aEnglishnoun. It means: Either of the two fleshy protrusions around the opening of the mouth. Pronounced /lɪp/. It ranks #5,808 in English word frequency. Often confused with Lt and lo.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | lip |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /lɪp/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #5,808 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for lip is 3 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /lɪp/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,808 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for lip in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Lt", "lo", "LP", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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 Saterland Frisian Lippe (“lip”), West Frisian… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is lip, spelled L-I-P, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Either of the two fleshy protrusions around the opening of the mouth.
- 2A part of the body that resembles a lip, such as the edge of a wound or the labia.
- 3The projecting rim of an open container or a bell, etc.; a short open spout.
- 4Backtalk; verbal impertinence.
- 5The edge of a high spot of land.
- 6The sharp cutting edge on the end of an auger.
- 7One of the two opposite divisions of a labiate corolla.
- 8A distinctive lower-appearing of the three true petals of an orchid.
- 9One of the edges of the aperture of a univalve shell.
- 10Embouchure: the condition or strength of a wind instrumentalist's lips.
- 11Clipping of lipstick.
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 Saterland Frisian Lippe (“lip”), West Frisian lippe (“lip”), Dutch lip (“lip”), German Lippe and Lefze (“lip”), Low German Lippe (“lip”), Luxembourgish Lëps (“lip”), Vilamovian łyp (“lip”), Yiddish ליפּ (lip, “lip”), Danish læbe (“lip”), Norwegian Bokmål leppe (“lip”), Norwegian Nynorsk leppa, leppe, lippa, lippe (“lip”), Swedish läpp (“lip”), Latin labium (“lip”).
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #5,808 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter L in our English index: