labial

• POS: Adjective, Noun
• HYPHEN: la=bi=al

CIDE DICTIONARY

labial, a. [LL. labialis, fr. L. labium lip: cf. F. labial. See Lip.].

•  Of or pertaining to the lips or labia; as, labial veins.  [1913 Webster]
•  Furnished with lips; as, a labial organ pipe.  [1913 Webster]
•  Articulated, as a consonant, mainly by the lips, as b, p, m, w.  [1913 Webster]
•  Of or pertaining to the labium; as, the labial palpi of insects. See Labium.  [1913 Webster]

labial, n. 

•  A letter or character representing an articulation or sound formed or uttered chiefly with the lips, as b, p, w.  [1913 Webster]
•  An organ pipe that is furnished with lips; a flue pipe.  [1913 Webster]
•  One of the scales which border the mouth of a fish or reptile.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

labial, adj. & n.
--adj.
1 a of the lips. b Zool. of, like, or serving as a lip, a liplike part, or a labium.
2 Dentistry designating the surface of a tooth adjacent to the lips.
3 Phonet. (of a sound) requiring partial or complete closure of the lips (e.g. p, b, f, v, m, w; and vowels in which lips are rounded, e.g. oo in m oon).
--n. Phonet. a labial sound.

Idiom

labial pipe Mus. an organ-pipe having lips; a flue-pipe.

Derivative

labialism n. labialize v.tr. (also -ise). labially adv.

Etymology

med.L labialis f. L labia lips

THESAURUS

labial

accented, allophone, alveolar, apical, apico-alveolar, apico-dental, articulated, articulation, aspiration, assimilated, assimilation, back, barytone, bilabial, broad, cacuminal, central, cerebral, check, checked, close, consonant, consonantal, continuant, dental, diphthong, dissimilated, dissimilation, dorsal, epenthetic vowel, explosive, flat, front, glide, glossal, glottal, glottalization, guttural, hard, heavy, high, intonated, labialization, labiate, labiodental, labiovelar, laryngeal, lateral, lax, light, lingual, lipped, liquid, low, manner of articulation, mid, modification, monophthong, monophthongal, morphophoneme, mute, muted, narrow, nasal, nasalized, occlusive, open, oxytone, palatal, palatalized, parasitic vowel, peak, pharyngeal, pharyngealization, pharyngealized, phone, phoneme, phonemic, phonetic, phonic, pitch, pitched, plosive, posttonic, prothetic vowel, retroflex, rounded, segmental phoneme, semivowel, soft, sonant, sonority, speech sound, stop, stopped, stressed, strong, surd, syllabic, syllabic nucleus, syllabic peak, syllable, tense, thick, throaty, tonal, tonic, transition sound, triphthong, twangy, unaccented, unrounded, unstressed, velar, vocable, vocalic, vocoid, voice, voiced, voiced sound, voiceless, voiceless sound, voicing, vowel, vowellike, weak, wide

ROGET THESAURUS

labial

Letter

N letter, character, hieroglyphic, type, capitals, digraph, trigraph, ideogram, ideograph, majuscule, minuscule, majuscule, minuscule, alphabet, ABC, abecedary, christcross-row, consonant, vowel, diphthong, triphthong, mute, liquid, labial, dental, guttural, syllable, monosyllable, dissyllable, polysyllable, affix, suffix, spelling, orthograph, phonography, phonetic spelling, anagrammatism, metagrammatism, cipher, monogram, anagram, doubleacrostic, literal, alphabetical, abecedarian, syllabic, majuscular, minuscular, uncial.

Edge

N edge, verge, brink, brow, brim, margin, border, confine, skirt, rim, flange, side, mouth, jaws, chops, chaps, fauces, lip, muzzle, threshold, door, porch, portal, coast, shore, frame, fringe, flounce, frill, list, trimming, edging, skirting, hem, selvedge, welt, furbelow, valance, gimp, border, marginal, skirting, labial, labiated, marginated.