kiss
/kɪs/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.58 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To touch with the lips or press the lips against, usually to show love or affection or passion, or as part of a greeting.
Transitive verb
verb
Of two or more people, to touch each other's lips together, usually to express love or affection or passion.
noun
An 'X' mark placed at the end of a letter or other type of message, signifying the bestowal of a kiss from the sender to the receiver.
noun
A type of filled chocolate candy, shaped as if someone had kissed the top. See Hershey's Kisses.
noun
The alignment of two bodies in the solar system such that they have the same longitude when seen from Earth; conjunction.
Example Sentences
- "He […] kissed her lips with such a clamorous smack, / That at the parting all the church echoed."
- "I'll kiss thy foot. I'll swear myself thy subject."
- "Yet didn't you ſee, yet didn't you ſee, What naughty tricks they put upon me: They broke my pitcher, And ſpilt the water, And huff'd my mother, And chid her daughter, And kiſs'd my ſiſter inſtead of me."
- "But then I had the [massive] flintlock by me for protection. […] The linen-press and a chest on the top of it formed, however, a very good gun-carriage; and, thus mounted, aim could be taken out of the window[…], and a 'bead' could be drawn upon Molly, the dairymaid, kissing the fogger behind the hedge, little dreaming that the deadly tube was levelled at them."
- "I kissed a girl and I liked it / The taste of her cherry chapstick / I kissed a girl just to try it / I hope my boyfriend don't mind it"
- "The nearside of the car just kissed a parked truck as he took the corner at high speed."
Etymology
From Middle English kissen, kussen, from Old English cyssan (“to kiss”), from Proto-West Germanic *kussijan, from Proto-Germanic *kussijaną (“to kiss”). Cognates include Saterland Frisian küsje, Dutch kussen, German Low German küssen, German küssen, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål kysse, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish kyssa. Compare Proto-Indo-European *ku-, *kus- (probably imitative), with descendants including Ancient Greek κύσσω (kússō), poetic form of κύσω (kúsō, “to kiss”), and Hittite [script needed] (kuwassanzi, “they kiss”).