shoot from the lip

verb

"shoot-from-the-lip" is a 15-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“shoot from the lip” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
18
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To speak confidently and unhesitantly but without careful forethought or a reliable knowledge of important facts pertaining to the subject matter.

Corpus desk

Index EN-shoot-from-the-lip · shoot from the lip · English

shoot from the lip · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 18 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "S" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for shoot from the lip
PropertyValue
Headwordshoot from the lip
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters18
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “shoot from the lip” in English

shoot from the lipranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

shoot from the lip is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To speak confidently and unhesitantly but without careful forethought or a reliable knowledge of important facts pertaining to the subject matter.".

No misspelling variants are generated for shoot from the lip in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Etymologically, the entry records: Humorous variant of shoot from the hip. The correct English form is shoot from the lip, spelled S-H-O-O-T- -F-R-O-M- -T-H-E- -L-I-P.

Definition

  1. 1
    To speak confidently and unhesitantly but without careful forethought or a reliable knowledge of important facts pertaining to the subject matter.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how shoot from the lip appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. [A] pair of suburban slickers […] made the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour the most popular new TV show of the season. They did it by shooting from the lip, dauntlessly laying down a crossfire of patter that is often more fizzle than sizzle.
  2. In a letter to Mr. Watt this week, Mr. Quitberg suggested that the Secetary had been shooting from the lip again. "You have never met me and until that moment had undoubtedly never heard of me," he wrote.

Etymology

Humorous variant of shoot from the hip.

Synonyms

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "shoot from the lip"?
"shoot from the lip" is spelled S-H-O-O-T- -F-R-O-M- -T-H-E- -L-I-P.
What does "shoot from the lip" mean?
As a verb, "shoot from the lip" means: To speak confidently and unhesitantly but without careful forethought or a reliable knowledge of important facts pertaining to the subject matter.
What is the origin of the word "shoot from the lip"?
Humorous variant of shoot from the hip. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list