Osculates

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Presses or touches with the lips as a form of greeting, affection, or respect
2. Brings lips into contact with another person or object in a gesture of love or familiarity
3. Touches softly with lips, typically to express love, greeting, or reverence

Etymology: Latin "ōsculum" meant "a little mouth" before it meant "a kiss": it is a diminutive built from "ōs", "mouth", with the diminutive suffix "-culum", so a kiss was originally a small mouth. Latin then made the verb "ōsculor", "to kiss", from that noun, and the past participle "ōsculātus" gave English its form. The verb "osculate" is itself a borrowing from that Latin participle, so English took the whole chain of Latin word-building intact. The "-ate" ending is the ordinary English verb-forming suffix, which is why the word sounds more like a technical term than a kiss. The word has an unexpected neighbour in "oscillate", which also contains the Latin "osculum" and is often treated as a related form. Its sense of swinging back and forth is a separate development, so the two words share a root rather than a meaning.

Synonyms: kisses, touches