lisp
/lɪsp/
lisp noun: the act or a habit of lisping.
Noun
lisp (plural lisps)
- The act or a habit of lisping.
- He used to have a terrible lisp before going to a speech therapist.
- It's common for children to speak with a lisp.
Verb
lisp (third-person singular simple present lisps, present participle lisping, simple past and past participle lisped)
- To pronounce the consonant ‘s’ imperfectly; to give ‘s’ and ‘z’ the sounds of ‘th’ (/θ/, /ð/). This is a speech impediment common among children.
- Until the age of 10, Dominic would lisp, but this was fixed by a speech therapist.
- To speak with imperfect articulation; to mispronounce, such as a child learning to talk.
- As yet a Child, nor yet a Fool to Fame, / I liſp'd in Numbers, for the Numbers came.1735 January 13 (Gregorian calendar; indicated as 1734), [Alexander] Pope, An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot, London: […] J[ohn] Wright for Lawton Gilliver […], →OCLC, page 7, lines 122–123
- To speak hesitatingly and with a low voice, as if afraid.
- Lest when my lisping, guilty tongue should halt.1597, Michaell [i.e., Michael] Drayton, “(please specify the chapter, poem, or subtitle)”, in Englands Heroicall Epistles, London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] Ling, […], →OCLC
- to express by the use of simple, childlike language.
- But the fashion spreads deeper and wider; the village is infected and the village green; Amelias and Claras sweep your rooms and cook your dinners, gentle Sophias milk your cows, and if you ask a pretty smiling girl at a cottage door to tell you her name, the rosy lips lisp out Caroline.1830, Mary Russell Mitford, “Cottage Names”, in Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery, volume IV, London: Whittaker, Treacher, & Co., […], →OCLC, page 68
- to speak unto them after their own capacity, and to lisp the words unto them , according as the babes and children of that age might sound them againagain1848, Henry Walter, editor, Doctrinal Treatises and Introductions to Different Portions of the Holy Scriptures
- To speak with reserve or concealment; to utter timidly or confidentially.
- to lisp treason
- "You have done well, sir," said Delwood, calmly, as he placed double the amount of Mrs. Santon's bribe in the Signor's hand; "you have done well, sir; and mark my words,—gold can never relieve a guilty conscience! Go, sir, and see that you lisp not a syllable of this to any one."1859, Ferna Vale, Natalie; or, A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds
Proper noun (1) capitalized: LISP
LISP (plural LISPs)
- Alternative form of Lisp.
Proper noun (2) capitalized: Lisp
Lisp (plural Lisps)
- A functional programming language with a distinctive parenthesized syntax, much used in artificial intelligence.
lisp meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Punjabi
lisp in Hindi
- The habit or an act of lisping.
- लिस्प lisp
lisp in Marathi
- लीस्प
lisp in Urdu
- لیسپ
lisp in Punjabi
- The habit or an act of lisping.
- ਤੋਤਲਾਪਣ totlāpaṇ
More languagesFewer languages
- lisp in Gujarati
- લીસ્પ
- lisp in Odia
- ଲିସ୍ପ
- lisp in Nepali
- लिस्प
- lisp in Arabic
- لُثْغَة luṯḡa
- lisp in Vietnamese
- sự nói ngọng, nói ngọng, nói đớt
Examples of lisp in a sentence
- Will Martin, with a lisping unbowsome tongue, addressed the one next to him to the following effect.
- Romeos who broke and balled the ladies outside, lovesickness turns them into lisping, stubble-chinned, prison-yard queens.
- She lisped slightly, little-girlish, looking at him still while drinking whisky steadily from a full glass.
Forms of lisp
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | lisps |
| alternative form | lipsey |
| alternative form | lithp |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | lisps |
| present participle | lisping |
| past participle | lisped |
| past | lisped |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | LISPs |
| plural | Lisps |
| alternative form | LISP |
Origin of lisp
From Middle English lispen, lipsen, wlispen, from Old English *wlispian (attested in āwlyspian (“to lisp”)), from Old English wlisp, wlips (“stammering, lisping”, adjective), from Proto-Germanic *wlispaz (“lisping”), from Proto-Indo-European *wlis-, *wleys- (“rod”), from *wel- (“to turn, roll”). Cognate with Middle Low German wlispen (“to lisp”), Dutch lispen (“to lisp”), German lispeln (“to lisp”), Danish læspe (“to lisp”), Swedish läspa (“to lisp”).
A contraction of list processing.
Words formed from lisp
Phrases with lisp
Words that rhyme with lisp
Questions about lisp
- What does lisp mean?
- Lisp means the act or a habit of lisping.
- What is lisp in Hindi?
- Lisp in Hindi is लिस्प (lisp). See Lisp meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is lisp?
- Lisp can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce lisp?
- Lisp is pronounced /lɪsp/.
- What is the plural of lisp?
- The plural of lisp is lisps.
Words near lisp in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: lisp (page history and authors); LISP (page history and authors); Lisp (page history and authors); lisp (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lisp (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lisp (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lisp (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lisp (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-lisp.wav.
Cite this entry: “lisp.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lisp. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.