Word Direct Answers

What does "lisp" mean?

Lisp: To speak with imperfect articulation; to mispronounce, as a child learning to talk. As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisped in numbers came. Pope.

Additional senses

  1. 2.To speak hesitatingly with a low voice, as if afraid. Lest when my lisping, guilty tongue should halt. Drayton.
  2. 3.To pronounce with a lisp.
  3. 4.To utter with imperfect articulation; to express with words pronounced imperfectly or indistinctly, as a child speaks; hence, to express by the use of simple, childlike language. To speak unto them after their own capacity, and to lispe words unto them according as the babes and children of that age might sound them again. Tyndale.
  4. 5.To speak with reserve or concealment; to utter timidly or confidentially; as, to lisp treason.
  5. 6.The habit or act of lisping. See Lisp, v. i., 1. I overheard her answer, with a very pretty lisp, "O! Strephon, you are a dangerous creature." Tatler.

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