different between head vs lip

English

Alternative forms

• heed (obsolete), hed (obsolete)
• 'ead (UK, eye dialect)

Pronunciation

• enPR: h?d, IPA^(key): /h?d/
• Rhymes: -?d

Etymology 1

From Middle English hed, heed, heved, heaved, from Old English h?afod (“head; top; source, origin; chief, leader; capital”), from Proto-Germanic *haubud? (“head”), from Proto-Indo-European *káput-.

Noun

head (countable and uncountable, plural heads or head)

1. (countable) The part of the body of an animal or human which contains the brain, mouth, and main sense organs.
   1. (people) To do with heads.
      1. Mental or emotional aptitude or skill.

      2. (figuratively, metonymically) Mind; one's own thoughts.
      3. A headache; especially one resulting from intoxication.
      4. A headdress; a covering for the head.

      5. (figuratively, metonymically) An individual person.
   2. (animals) To do with heads.
      1. (plural head, measure word for livestock and game) A single animal.

      2. The population of game.

      3. The antlers of a deer.
2. (countable) The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
   1. The end of a table.
      1. The end of a rectangular table furthest from the entrance; traditionally considered a seat of honor.

      2. (billiards) The end of a pool table opposite the end where the balls have been racked.
   2. (countable) The principal operative part of a machine or tool.
      1. The end of a hammer, axe, golf club, or similar implement used for striking other objects.
      2. The end of a nail, screw, bolt, or similar fastener which is opposite the point; usually blunt and relatively wide.

      3. The sharp end of an arrow, spear, or pointer.

      4. (lacrosse) The top part of a lacrosse stick that holds the ball.
      5. (music) A drum head, the membrane which is hit to produce sound.

      6. A machine element which reads or writes electromagnetic signals to or from a storage medium.

      7. (computing) The part of a disk drive responsible for reading and writing data.
      8. (automotive) The cylinder head, a platform above the cylinders in an internal combustion engine, containing the valves and spark plugs.
   3. (uncountable, countable) The foam that forms on top of beer or other carbonated beverages.

      He never learned how to pour a glass of beer so it didn't have too much head.

   4. (engineering) The end cap of a cylindrically-shaped pressure vessel.
   5. (Britain, geology) Deposits near the top of a geological succession.
   6. (journalism) Short for headline.
      • 1968, Earl English, ?Clarence Hach, Scholastic Journalism (page 166)

        The content of a headline over a news story should be taken from the lead of the story. […] The head should give the same impression as the body of the story.

   7. (medicine) The end of an abscess where pus collects.
   8. (music) The headstock of a guitar.
   9. (nautical) A leading component.
      1. The top edge of a sail.
      2. The bow of a vessel.
   10. (Britain) A headland.
3. (social, countable, metonymically) A leader or expert.
   1. The place of honour, or of command; the most important or foremost position; the front.
   2. (metonymically) Leader; chief; mastermind.
   3. (metonymically) A headmaster or headmistress.
      • 1992 June 24, Edwina Currie, Diary:

        At 4pm, the phone went. It was The Sun: 'We hear your daughter's been expelled for cheating at her school exams...'
        
        She'd made a remark to a friend at the end of the German exam and had been pulled up for talking.
        
        As they left the exam room, she muttered that the teacher was a 'twat'. He heard and flipped—a pretty stupid thing to do, knowing the kids were tired and tense after exams. Instead of dropping it, the teacher complained to the Head and Deb was carpeted.

   4. (music, slang, figuratively, metonymically) A person with an extensive knowledge of hip hop.

4. A significant or important part.
   1. A beginning or end, a protuberance.
      1. The source of a river; the end of a lake where a river flows into it.

      2. A clump of seeds, leaves or flowers; a capitulum.
         1. An ear of wheat, barley, or other small cereal.
         2. The leafy top part of a tree.
      3. (anatomy) The rounded part of a bone fitting into a depression in another bone to form a ball-and-socket joint.
      4. (nautical) The toilet of a ship.

      5. (in the plural) Tiles laid at the eaves of a house.
         • 1875, Edward H. Knight, Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary, vol. II, page 1086

           Heads. (Roofing.) Tiles which are laid at the eaves of a house

   2. A component.
      1. (jazz) The principal melody or theme of a piece.
      2. (linguistics) A morpheme that determines the category of a compound or the word that determines the syntactic type of the phrase of which it is a member.
5. Headway; progress.

6. Topic; subject.

7. (only in the singular) Denouement; crisis.
   • 1712 October 18, anonymous letter in The Spectator, edited by Joseph Addison, no. 513, collected in The Works of the Late Right Honorable Joseph Addison, Esq, Birmingham: John Baskerville, published 1761, volume IV, page 10:

     THE indi?po?ition which has long hung upon me, is at la?t grown to ?uch an head, that it mu?t quickly make an end of me, or of it?elf.

8. (fluid dynamics) Pressure and energy.
   1. (uncountable, countable) A buildup of fluid pressure, often quantified as pressure head.

      How much head do you have at the Glens Falls feeder dam?

   2. The difference in elevation between two points in a column of fluid, and the resulting pressure of the fluid at the lower point.
   3. More generally, energy in a mass of fluid divided by its weight.
9. (slang, uncountable) Fellatio or cunnilingus; oral sex.

10. (slang) The glans penis.
11. (slang, countable) A heavy or habitual user of illicit drugs.
    • 1936, Lee Duncan, Over The Wall, Dutton

      Then I saw the more advanced narcotic addicts, who shot unbelievable doses of powerful heroin in the main line – the vein of their arms; the hysien users; chloroform sniffers, who belonged to the riff-raff element of the dope chippeys, who mingled freely with others of their kind; canned heat stiffs, paragoric hounds, laudanum fiends, and last but not least, the veronal heads.

    • 2005, Martin Torgoff, Can't Find My Way Home, Simon & Schuster, page 177,

      The hutch now looks like a “Turkish bath,” and the heads have their arms around one another, passing the pipe and snapping their fingers as they sing Smokey Robinson's “Tracks of My Tears” into the night.

12. (obsolete) Power; armed force.

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:head.

Gallery

Synonyms

• (part of the body): caput (anatomy); pate, noggin (slang), loaf (slang), nut (slang), noodle (slang), bonce (British slang)
• (mental aptitude or talent): mind
• (mental or emotional control): composure, poise
• (topmost part of anything): top
• (leader): boss, chief, leader
• (headmaster, headmistress): headmaster m, headmistress f, principal (US)
• (toilet of a ship): See Thesaurus:toilet and Thesaurus:bathroom
• (top of a sail):
• (foam on carbonated beverages):
• (fellatio): blowjob, blow job, fellatio, oral sex
• (end of tool used for striking):
• (blunt end of fastener):
• See also Thesaurus:head

Antonyms

• (topmost part of anything): base, bottom, underside, foot, tail
• (leader): subordinate, underling
• (blunt end of fastener): point, sharp end, tip

Usage notes

• To give something its head is to allow it to run freely. This is used for horses, and, sometimes, figuratively for vehicles.

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ??? (heddo)
• Sranan Tongo: ede

Translations

See head/translations § Noun.

Adjective

head (not comparable)

1. Of, relating to, or intended for the head.

Translations

Verb

head (third-person singular simple present heads, present participle heading, simple past and past participle headed)

2. (transitive) To be in command of. (See also head up.)

3. (transitive) To come at the beginning of; to commence.

   A group of clowns headed the procession.

   The most important items headed the list.

4. (transitive) To strike with the head; as in soccer, to head the ball
5. (intransitive) To move in a specified direction.

6. (fishing) To remove the head from a fish.

7. (intransitive) To originate; to spring; to have its course, as a river.
   • 1775, James Adair, The History of the American Indians, page 223

     a broad purling river, that heads in the great blue ridge of mountains,
8. (intransitive) To form a head.
9. (transitive) To form a head to; to fit or furnish with a head.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Edmund Spenser to this entry?)

10. (transitive) To cut off the top of; to lop off.

11. (transitive, obsolete) To behead; to decapitate.
    • 1822, Allan Cunningham, "Ezra Peden", in Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry, v. 1, p. 37.

      I tell thee, man of God, the uncharitableness of the sect to which thou pertainest has thronged the land of punishment as much as those who headed, and hanged, and stabbed, and shot, and tortured.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

12. To go in front of.

13. To get in the front of, so as to hinder or stop; to oppose.

14. (by extension) To check or restrain.
15. To set on the head.

Derived terms

Translations

Related terms

• ahead
• knucklehead
• railhead
• smackhead

Etymology 2

From Middle English hed, heved, heaved, hæfedd, from Old English h?afod- (“principal, main, primary”), from Proto-Germanic *haubuda-, *haubida-, from Proto-Indo-European *kauput-, *káput- (“head”). Compare Saterland Frisian hööft-, West Frisian haad-, Dutch hoofd-, German Low German höövd-, German haupt-.

Adjective

head (not comparable)

1. Foremost in rank or importance.

2. Placed at the top or the front.
3. Coming from in front.

Synonyms

• (foremost in rank or importance): chief, principal
• (placed at the top or the front): first, top

Antonyms

• (coming from in front): tail

Translations

Anagrams

• DHEA, ahed, hade

Estonian

Adjective

head

1. inflection of hea:
   1. partitive singular
   2. plural

English

Etymology

From Middle English lippe, from Old English lippa, lippe (“lip”), from Proto-West Germanic *lippj? (“lip”), from Proto-Germanic *lepô, from Proto-Indo-European *leb- (“to hang loosely, droop, sag”). Cognate with West Frisian lippe (“lip”), Dutch lip (“lip”), German Lippe and Lefze (“lip”), Swedish läpp (“lip”), Norwegian leppe (“lip”), Latin labium (“lip”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: l?p, IPA^(key): /l?p/
• Rhymes: -?p

Noun

lip (countable and uncountable, plural lips)

2. (countable) Either of the two fleshy protrusions around the opening of the mouth.

   Synonym: labium

3. (countable) A part of the body that resembles a lip, such as the edge of a wound or the labia.

   Synonym: labium
4. (by extension, countable) The projecting rim of an open container; a short open spout.

   Synonyms: edge, rim, spout

5. (slang, uncountable) Backtalk; verbal impertinence.

   Synonyms: backchat, cheek (informal), impudence, rudeness
6. The edge of a high spot of land.
   • 1894, David Livingstone, A Popular Account of Dr Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries, Chapter VII

   • 1913, D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, chapter 12
7. The sharp cutting edge on the end of an auger.
8. (botany) One of the two opposite divisions of a labiate corolla.
9. (botany) The distinctive petal of the Orchis family.
10. (zoology) One of the edges of the aperture of a univalve shell.
11. (music, colloquial) Embouchure: the condition or strength of a wind instrumentalist's lips.

Meronyms

• (fleshy protrusion): philtrum, Cupid's bow, vermilion, commissure

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

lip (third-person singular simple present lips, present participle lipping, simple past and past participle lipped)

1. (transitive) To touch or grasp with the lips; to kiss; to lap the lips against (something).
   • c. 1606, William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, Scene 5,^[1]

     […] a hand that kings

     Have lipp’d and trembled kissing.

   • 1826, Winthrop Mackworth Praed, “Josephine” in The New Monthly Magazine, Volume 16, No. 63, March 1826, p. 308,^[2]

     Our love was like the bright snow-flakes,

     Which melt before you pass,

     Or the bubble on the wine which breaks

     Before you lip the glass;

   • 1901, Robert W. Chambers, Cardigan, New York: Harper, 1902, Chapter 9, p. 130,^[3]

     Once […] at dawn, I heard a bull-moose lipping tree-buds, and lay still in my blanket while the huge beast wandered past, crack! crash! and slop! slop!through the creek […]

   • 1929, William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury, New York: Vintage, 1956, “June Second 1910,” p. 144,^[4]

     […] in a quick swirl the trout lipped a fly beneath the surface with that sort of gigantic delicacy of an elephant picking up a peanut.

2. (transitive, figuratively) (of something inanimate) To touch lightly.
   • 1971, Iris Murdoch, An Accidental Man, New York: Viking, p. 405,^[5]

     He moved the boat onward very slowly, lipping the glossy surface delicately with the light oars.

3. (intransitive, transitive) To wash against a surface, lap.
   • 1898, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Tragedy of the Korosko, London: Smith, Elder & Co., Chapter 10, p. 324,^[6]

     It was very soothing and restful up there on the saloon deck, with no sound but the gentle lipping of the water as it rippled against the sides of the steamer.

   • 1922, John Masefield, The Dream, London: Heinemann, p. 9,^[7]

     So on I went, and by my side, it seemed,

     Paced a great bull, kept from me by a brook

     Which lipped the grass about it as it streamed

     Over the flagroots that the grayling shook;

   • 2008, Julie Czerneda, Riders of the Storm, New York: Daw Books, Interlude, p. 406,^[8]

     The mist that lipped against the wall behind him hung overhead like a ceiling, hiding any stars.

4. (intransitive) To rise or flow up to or over the edge of something.
   • 1903, Robert Barr, Over the Border, London: Isbister, Book 4, Chapter 7, p. 375,^[9]

     Below, the swollen Eden, lipping full from bank to bank, rolled yellow and surly to the sea.

   • 1911, Charles G. D. Roberts, Neighbors Unknown, U.S. edition, New York: Macmillan, “Mothers of the North,” p. 256,^[10]

     The rest of the herd were grouped so close to the water’s edge that from time to time a lazy, leaden-green swell would come lipping up and splash them.

   • 1939, John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, New York: Viking, Chapter Twenty-Two, p. 410,^[11]

     The sun lipped over the mountain by now, shone on the corrugated-iron roofs of the five sanitary units, shone on the gray tents and on the swept ground of the streets between the tents.

   • 1973, Mary Stewart, The Hollow Hills, New York: William Morrow, Book I, Chapter 3, p. 26,^[12]

     Above the spring the little statue of the god Myrddin, he of the winged spaces of the air, stared from between the ferns. Beneath his cracked wooden feet the water bubbled and dripped into the stone basin, lipping over into the grass below.

5. (transitive) To form the rim, edge or margin of something.
   • 1894, Fiona Macleod, Pharais, Derby, Chapter 4, p. 88,^[13]

     […] old Macrae, of Adrfeulan Farm near by, had caused rude steps to be cut in the funnel-like hollow rising sheer up from the sloping ledge that lipped the chasm and reached the summit of the scaur.

   • 1920, W. E. B. Du Bois, Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil, New York: Harcourt, Brace & Howe, Chapter 9, p. 242,^[14]

     It was a tiny stone house whose front window lipped the passing sidewalk where ever tramped the feet of black soldiers marching home.

   • 1924, James Oliver Curwood, A Gentleman of Courage, New York: Cosmopolitan, Chapter 3, p. 36,^[15]

     The woman had slipped to the very edge of the rock—the edge that lipped the fury of the Pit. She was half over. And she was slipping—slipping....

6. (transitive) To utter verbally.
   • 1818, John Keats, Endymion, London: Taylor & Hessey, Book I, lines 964-965, p. 48,^[16]

     Salt tears were coming, when I heard my name

     Most fondly lipp’d […]

7. (transitive) To simulate speech by moving the lips without making any sound; to mouth.
   • 1887, Thomas Hardy, The Woodlanders, Chapter 46,^[17]

     “Ah, I thought my memory didn’t deceive me!” he lipped silently.

   • 1980, Cyril Dabydeen, “Mammita’s Garden Cove” in Caribbean New Wave: Contemporary Short Stories, London: Heinemann, 1990, p. 65,^[18]

     And as he read, lipping the words, he thought of his own boyhood […]

8. (sports) To make a golf ball hit the lip of the cup, without dropping in.
   • 1910, Fred M. White, “A Record Round,” The Windsor Magazine, March 1910,^[19]

     “I shall find the ball to the left of a patch of sword grass near the hole,” he said. “My second will lip the hole, I know it as well as if I could see the whole thing.”

   • 1999, J. M. Gregson, Malice Aforethough, Sutton: Severn House, Chapter Nine, p. 112,^[20]

     Lambert just missed his three; his putt lipped the hole before finishing two feet past it.

9. (transitive, music) To change the sound of (a musical note played on a wind instrument) by moving or tensing the lips.

Translations

Anagrams

• LPI, PIL

Afrikaans

Etymology

From Dutch lip, from Middle Dutch leppe, with influence of Middle Low German lippe, from Old Dutch leppa, from Proto-West Germanic *lippj?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /l?p/

Noun

lip (plural lippe, diminutive lippie)

1. lip (part of the mouth)

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch leppe, with influence of Middle Low German lippe, from Old Dutch leppa, from Proto-West Germanic *lippj?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /l?p/
• Hyphenation: lip
• Rhymes: -?p

Noun

lip f (plural lippen, diminutive lipje n)

1. lip (part of the mouth)
2. lip (of a container)

Related terms

• lipklank
• liplezen
• lippen
• lippendienst
• lippenrood
• lippenstift
• lipvis
• loslippig
• bovenlip
• onderlip
• schaamlip

Descendants

• Afrikaans: lip

Anagrams

• pil

Gallo

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

lip ? (plural lips)

1. lip

Lower Sorbian

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *l??p?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lip/, [l?ip]

Noun

lip m (diminutive lipk)

1. glue, birdlime

Declension

Derived terms

• lipa?

Verb

lip

1. second-person singular imperative of lipa?

Alternative forms

• lipaj

Further reading

• lip in Ernst Muka/Mucke (St. Petersburg and Prague 1911–28): S?ownik dolnoserbskeje r?cy a jeje nar?cow / Wörterbuch der nieder-wendischen Sprache und ihrer Dialekte. Reprinted 2008, Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag
• lip in Manfred Starosta (1999): Dolnoserbsko-nimski s?ownik / Niedersorbisch-deutsches Wörterbuch. Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag.

Min Nan

Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /l?ip/

Noun

lip f

1. genitive plural of lipa

Serbo-Croatian

Alternative forms

• (Ekavian): l?p
• (Ijekavian): lij?p

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *l?p?.

Adjective

lip (Cyrillic spelling ???)

1. (Chakavian, Ikavian) nice, pretty
   • 1375, N.N., Muka svete Margarite (transribed from Glagolitic original):

     Pasite se, ovce mile,

     sve ste lipe, sve ste bile

   • 1501, Marko Maruli?, Judita:

     Tad se us?udiše svi, vidiv Juditu,

     toko lipa biše i u takovu svitu.

   • 1759, Antun Kanižli?, Sveta Rožalija:

     Ovog zaru?nika, lipa, mila, sri?na,

     imati jest dika, sri?a, radost vi?na.

Tok Pisin

Etymology

From English leaf

Noun

lip

1. leaf