mouth

UK/maʊθ/US/maʊθ/

nounA13 meanings One of the most common words in English · #391 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: mouths, mouthing, mouthed

Your mouth is the opening you eat, speak and smile with. Open your mouth, a mouthful, keep your mouth shut.

It also means the opening of anything: the mouth of a river, the mouth of a cave, the mouth of a bottle. The verb, pronounced with a voiced th, means to form words without sound: she mouthed the answer across the room. The idioms are many: word of mouth, put your foot in your mouth, down in the mouth, and shoot your mouth off. Note mouthpiece, mouthwash, and badmouth.

Definitions of mouth

1nounmouthThe opening you eat and speak with.A1~78%
“He opened his mouth and thought better of it.”
2nounopeningThe opening of something other than a body — of a river, a cave, a bottle.B1~20%
“The town lies at the mouth of the river, where it meets the sea.”
3verbformTo form words without sound.B2~2%
“She mouthed thank you to me across the noisy room.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 19 sentences found in the wild and placed 15 of them on a sense (4 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

mouth is an opening.

Phrases it lives in

put your foot in your mouth — say exactly the wrong thing without meaning to

Where it comes from

Old English muth descends from a root meaning to chew, which also gives Latin mentum, the chin, and mandible. The mouth is named for the jaw rather than for speech.

Proto-Indo-European
*men- (stand out)
Middle English
mouth
English, today
mouth

From Middle English mouth. From Middle English mouth, from Old English mūþ, from Proto-West Germanic munþ, from Proto-Germanic munþaz (“mouth”), from Proto-Indo-European ment- (“to chew; jaw, mouth”). Cognate with Scots mooth (“mouth”), frr mös, müs, Mür (“mouth”), West Frisian mûn (“mouth”), Dutch mond (“mouth”), muide (“river mouth”) and mui (“riptide”), German Mund (“mouth”), lb Mond (“mouth”), Danish mund (“mouth”), Faroese muður, munnur (“mouth”), Icelandic munnur (“mouth”), Swedish mun (“mouth”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk munn (“mouth”), Gothic 𐌼𐌿𐌽𐌸𐍃 (“mouth”), Latin mentum (“chin”) and mandō (“to chew”), Ancient Greek μάσταξ (“jaws, mouth”) and μασάομαι (“to chew”), Albanian mjekër (“chin, beard”), Welsh mant (“jawbone”), hit 𒈨𒂊𒉌𒄿 (“face, cheek”). The verb is from Middle English mouthen, from the noun.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Body & Health

Practise this word

mouth in the wild

Most people with hand, foot, and mouth disease get better on their own in 7 to 10 days.
Hand, foot, and mouth disease
HFMD should not be confused with foot-and-mouth disease (also known as hoof-and-mouth disease), which mostly affects livestock.
Hand, foot, and mouth disease
Word of mouth is the passing of information from person to person using oral communication, which could be as simple as telling someone the time of day.
Word of mouth
Rarely, a mouth ulcer that does not heal may be a sign of oral cancer.
Mouth ulcer
Mouth breathing, medically known as chronic oral ventilation, is long-term breathing through the mouth.
Mouth breathing

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

Definitions of mouth

1nounmouthThe opening you eat and speak with.A1~78%

“He opened his mouth and thought better of it.”

2nounopeningThe opening of something other than a body — of a river, a cave, a bottle.B1~20%

“The town lies at the mouth of the river, where it meets the sea.”

3verbformTo form words without sound.B2~2%

“She mouthed thank you to me across the noisy room.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 19 sentences found in the wild and placed 15 of them on a sense (4 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

mouth is an opening.