Underlip

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The lower of the two fleshy folds that form the edge of the mouth, located just beneath the upper lip
2. The fleshy lower border of the mouth that moves when a person speaks, eats, or pouts
3. The protruding lower lip, often shown when someone sulks or expresses displeasure

Etymology: "Underlip" is a plain compound: "under" joined to "lip," with the meaning following directly from the parts. "Lip" traces back to Old English "lippa," a word that shares its ancestry with the same body part in other Germanic languages, and "under" comes from the Old English preposition with the same sense of beneath or below. Put together, the word names the lip that sits below the other one. The pattern is a familiar one in German, where "Unterlippe" means the same thing and is built the same way. Saterland Frisian, a small language spoken in northwestern Germany, has its own cognate, "Unnerlippe," showing that the compound is a shared Germanic habit rather than a borrowing from one language into another.

Synonyms: lower lip

Antonyms: upper lip