Word.ws English Dictionary

shoot from the lip

shoot from the lip verb: to speak confidently and unhesitantly but without careful forethought or a reliable knowledge of important facts pertaining to the subject matter.

Verb

shoot from the lip (third-person singular simple present shoots from the lip, present participle shooting from the lip, simple past and past participle shot from the lip)

  1. (idiomatic) To speak confidently and unhesitantly but without careful forethought or a reliable knowledge of important facts pertaining to the subject matter.
    • [A] pair of suburban slickers […] made the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour the most popular new TV show of the season. They did it by shooting from the lip, dauntlessly laying down a crossfire of patter that is often more fizzle than sizzle.1967 June 20, “Television: Mothers' Brothers”, in Time, retrieved 10 May 2018
    • In a letter to Mr. Watt this week, Mr. Quitberg suggested that the Secetary had been shooting from the lip again. "You have never met me and until that moment had undoubtedly never heard of me," he wrote.1983 September 30, James F. Clarity, Warren Weaver Jr., “Briefing”, in New York Times, retrieved 10 May 2018

Synonyms of shoot from the lip

Forms of shoot from the lip

third-person singular presentshoots from the lip
present participleshooting from the lip
past participleshot from the lip
pastshot from the lip

Origin of shoot from the lip

Humorous variant of shoot from the hip.

Questions about shoot from the lip

What does shoot from the lip mean?
Shoot from the lip means to speak confidently and unhesitantly but without careful forethought or a reliable knowledge of important facts pertaining to the subject matter.
What part of speech is shoot from the lip?
Shoot from the lip is a verb.
What is the past tense of shoot from the lip?
The past tense of shoot from the lip is shot from the lip.

Words near shoot from the lip in the dictionary

  1. shoot first and ask questions later
  2. shoot fly
  3. shoot for the moon
  4. shoot for the stars
  5. shoot from the hip
  6. shoot from the lip
  7. shoot holes
  8. shoot it out
  9. shoot me
  10. shoot off
  11. shoot off at the mouth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shoot from the lip (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-shoot from the lip.ogg.

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