mouth (moUTH)

[ Thanne Mercy ful myldly mouthed thise wordes: "Throw experience," quod she, "I hope they shal be Piers Plowman (B), xviii. 150. saued." ... 2. To utter with a voice affectedly big or swelling, or with more regard to sound than to sense. Speak the speech trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Shak., Hamlet, iii. 2. 3. I hate to hear an actor mouthing trifles. Goldsmith, Citizen of the World, xxi. 3. To touch, pre , or seize with the mouth or lips; take into the mouth; mumble; lick. The beholder at first sight conceives it a rude and inunto of for the things the and imputes the ensuing shape Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Err., iii. 6. He mouthed them, and betwixt his grinders caught. Dryden, tr. of Persius's Satires, i. 231. Psyche... hugged and never hugg'd it [her infant] close enough, And in her hunger mouth'd and mumbled it. 4. To reproach; insult. Tennyson, Prince , vi. Then might the debauchee Untrembling mouth the heavens. 3881 IMG:content-1030.png:[blocks in formation]