Word.ws English Dictionary

lip flap

lip flap noun: a failure in audio-video synchronization, so that an actor's lips move but no sound is heard.

Noun

lip flap (countable and uncountable, plural lip flaps)

  1. A failure in audio-video synchronization, so that an actor's lips move but no sound is heard.
  2. A movement of an actor's lips, which is to be matched as closely as possible in a dubbed version of the film.
    • […] pick it up earlier or later where there is no lip-flap. But if you must take it there, then you must precede it with another shot of the same speaker at a different angle, hopefully closer.1972, Filmmakers Newsletter, volume 5, number 7, part 12, page 46
    • “So when we translate,” Lam was saying, “it's all about what we call lip flaps. Like, how many times does mouth move? We match translation more to mouth than to what words really mean.2009, Shawn Klomparens, Two Years, No Rain, page 49
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see lip, flap.

Forms of lip flap

plurallip flaps

Questions about lip flap

What does lip flap mean?
Lip flap means a failure in audio-video synchronization, so that an actor's lips move but no sound is heard.
What part of speech is lip flap?
Lip flap is a noun.
What is the plural of lip flap?
The plural of lip flap is lip flaps.

Words near lip flap in the dictionary

  1. lip dub
  2. lip dubs
  3. lip duo
  4. lip duos
  5. lip fern
  6. lip flap
  7. lip flaps
  8. lip flip
  9. lip flips
  10. lip gloss
  11. lip glosses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lip flap (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “lip flap.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lip_flap. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.