kiss
Noun pluralkisses
Pluralkisses
- 1To touch someone or something with the lips, or of two people to press their lips together, as a sign of love, affection, passion, or greeting.
They kiss their children before bed each night.
She kissed the photograph and tucked it into her wallet.
UsageKiss someone on the cheek, lips or forehead. People also kiss someone goodnight or goodbye.
Note
Its object can be the person or the place the lips land. Shakespeare has both kissed her lips and I'll kiss thy foot, and in the second the kiss is homage rather than affection. Older texts sometimes write the past as kist; today it is always kissed.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Shakespeare uses kissed her lips in The Taming of the Shrew; Gremio describes Petruchio kissing Katherine. folger.edu
- Caliban says I'll kiss thy foot in Shakespeare's The Tempest, expressing submission to Stephano. folger.edu
- Kist is a historical past-tense spelling of kiss. en.wiktionary.org
- 2A pressing of the lips against someone or something, typically as a greeting or a sign of love or affection.
Their first kiss happened under the stadium lights.
She blew a kiss to the crowd as she left the stage.
UsageUsually give someone a kiss or blow a kiss; a kiss lands on the cheek or lips.
Note
The noun has its own history. Old English coss passed into Middle English as kis or kys, taking its vowel from the verb kissen. Much of its expressive work is done by the words around it: Kipling's Mrs. Hauksbee describes one as "a sort of slidy, pecking dab."
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- The noun descends from Old English coss through Middle English kis and kys, with its vowel influenced by the verb kissen. en.wiktionary.org
- Rudyard Kipling wrote the work containing Mrs. Hauksbee's description. en.wikisource.org
- Mrs. Hauksbee describes a kiss as a sort of slidy, pecking dab in The Education of Otis Yeere. en.wikisource.org
- 3To touch lightly or slightly, or to cause one thing to come into gentle contact with another.
The two boats kissed gently as they docked side by side.
Watch the sander kiss the wood without gouging it.
Similartouch, brush, graze, skim
Note
Light contact borrowed from the lips: a car that kisses a parked truck merely grazes it, and in pool one ball can kiss another into the pocket. Shakespeare's "fire and powder, which as they kiss consume" shows how old the figure is, and that the lightest touch can still be ruinous.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Shakespeare uses these words figuratively in Romeo and Juliet, Act II, scene vi; the speaker is Friar Lawrence. gutenberg.org
Less common meanings
- 4An 'X' mark placed at the end of a letter or message, standing for a kiss sent from the writer to the reader.
Her letter closed with a row of kisses.
He signed the card with a single kiss beneath his initials.
Note
Brian W. Aldiss's The Saliva Tree (1965) has a character who "signed it and added kisses."
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Brian W. Aldiss wrote The Saliva Tree, first published in September 1965 as a novella in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. en.wikipedia.org
- The work contains the quoted wording describing a character signing a letter and adding kisses; this is narration, not spoken dialogue. en.wiktionary.org
- 5A small, usually solid piece of chocolate candy with a flat base and a pointed top, shaped as if its top had been pinched or kissed.
He grabbed a handful of kisses from the candy dish.
Each guest found a single chocolate kiss on their plate.
- 6Contact between the envelopes of two hot air balloons when they collide slowly in flight, usually without damage or injury.
A brief kiss between the envelopes startled the passengers but caused no harm.
During the festival, two balloons drifted into a slow kiss over the fairground.
Note
Ballooning has a soft word for a mid-air bump. When two envelopes drift together at low speed and part again unharmed, the event is called a kiss, a gentle kind of collision. The word does reassuring work, signaling that the contact was slow and between fabric, leaving the balloons undamaged.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Low-speed contact between balloon envelopes is called a kiss. asrs.arc.nasa.gov
- A kiss is itself a type of mid-air collision. asrs.arc.nasa.gov
- 7To treat someone or something with fondness or tender care.
Note
An archaic, figurative use in which the lips drop away and only the tenderness remains. It belongs to older, deliberately elevated writing, where fortune or a patron might kiss someone with favor.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Kiss has an archaic sense meaning to treat with fondness. en.wiktionary.org
- Older literary writing uses kiss figuratively to express favor. folger.edu
- 8The alignment of two bodies in the solar system so that they share the same longitude as seen from Earth, also called a conjunction.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
From Middle English kissen, from Old English cyssan ("to kiss"), from Proto-Germanic *kussijaną. It has cognates such as Dutch kussen, German küssen, and Swedish kyssa, and likely goes back to a Proto-Indo-European root that was probably imitative of the sound of a kiss.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 5 facts
- Kiss descends through Middle English kissen and Old English cyssan, meaning 'to kiss', from Proto-Germanic *kussijaną. en.wiktionary.org
- Dutch kussen is a cognate. en.wiktionary.org
- German küssen is a cognate. en.wiktionary.org
- Swedish kyssa is a cognate. en.wiktionary.org
- The word probably ultimately derives from an imitative Proto-Indo-European root. en.wiktionary.org
Proto-Germanic *kussaz gave Proto-West Germanic *koss and Old English coss. In Middle English this appeared as kis, a form of cos reshaped under the influence of the verb kissen.