mouth

noun

1. The front opening of a creature through which food is ingested.

   “"Open your mouth and say 'aah'," directed the doctor.”

   “She kissed him on the mouth.”

   “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.”

2. The end of a river out of which water flows into a sea or other large body of water; or the end of a tributary out of which water flows into a larger river.

   “The mouth of the river is a good place to go birdwatching in spring and autumn.”

   “The Yalu is mainly useful in floating down immense rafts of wood, which find their way from the town of Antung, at the mouth of the river, to the port of Newchwang, and to Chefoo and Tientsin for the provinces of Shantung and Chihli.”

3. An outlet, aperture or orifice.

   “But come, Lady, we are too near the mouth of the cavern; let us seek its inmost recesses.”

   “‘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.’”

   “But why give a tunnel mouth any decoration whatsoever?”

4. (slang)A loud or overly talkative person.

   “My kid sister is a real mouth; she never shuts up.”

5. (slang)A gossip.

   “Siobhán, you know Donna's a mouth.”

6. The crosspiece of a bridle bit, which enters the mouth of an animal.
7. (obsolete)A principal speaker; one who utters the common opinion; a mouthpiece.

   “Every coffeehouse has some particular statesman belonging to it, who is the mouth of the street where he lives.”

8. (obsolete)Speech; language; testimony.

   “that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established”

9. (obsolete)A wry face; a grimace; a mow.

   “Counterfeit sad looks, / Make mouths upon me when I turn my back.”

verb

1. (transitive)To speak; to utter.

   “He mouthed his opinions on the subject at the meeting.”

   “How can you get up there and mouth such clichés?”

   “mouthing big phrases”

2. (transitive)To represent (words or sounds) by making the actions of speech, but silently, without producing sound; to frame.

   “The prompter mouthed the words to the actor, who had forgotten them.”

   “She mouthed a warning to me as the teacher entered the room.”

   “One was of a face repeatedly mouthing the vowel sound eee, the other was of a face repeatedly mouthing the vowel sound ahhh.”

   “It should be explained that lip patterns are generally not the same as patterns which would be made by 'mouthing' words.”

   “"So very hot,” I mouthed at myself in the mirror.”

3. (intransitive, transitive)To move the mouth, with or without sound; to form (air or words) with the mouth, with or without sound.

   “But words are nothing to the misbelieving -- mere air mouthed into a sound.”

   “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.”

4. (abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis, figuratively)Ellipsis of mouth the words; to speak insincerely.

   “She [Marjorie Taylor Greene] seems to have sincerely believed the lies that shrewder players merely mouthed.”

5. (ambitransitive)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.”

   “This view of voice cultivation excludes all mouthing and ranting which have been thought to be necessary incidents of voice culture.”

6. 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.”

   “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.”

7. (transitive)To pick up or handle with the lips or mouth, but not chew or swallow.

   “The fish mouthed the lure, but didn't bite.”

   “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.”

   “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.”

   “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.”

   “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.”

8. 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.”

   “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.”

9. 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.”

   “Meanwhile she, and the male, mouthed over the inner surface of pot until it was as clean as could be.”

   “Before egg-laying begins, the spawning grounds are mouthed over (cleaned) by both sexes.”

   “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.”

10. 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.”

11. (obsolete)To make mouths at

    “He drew the cork from his bottle..and mouthed at his companions even while he bowed to them.”

    “Meanwhile, the tyrant, with untimely wit And mouthing face, derides the small one's moan, Who, all lamenting for his loss, doth sit,”

    “And that other face -- that awful, gibbering, mouthing face she drew away.”

    “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 .”

    “The man mouthed at the bars. He was half-mad, I think, in that one minute.”

12. 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.”

    “The front collar must be mouthed out as shown, to take the second cone on the mandrel.”

    “The cutting edge of a shaving cutter should be mouthed out slightly with a fine oilstone.”

13. 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.”

    “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.”

    “After we got the ewes "mouthed out," we turned them over to the herder that Foncy had hired to drive them to Shaniko.”

    “Daniels told complainants in substance he would not buy any sheep without mouthing them.”