# kiss

Pronunciation: say "KIS" /kɪs/

## Verb

1. To 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.
   - Simple: To touch someone with your lips to show love or to say hello.
   - _They kiss their children before bed each night._
   - _She kissed the photograph and tucked it into her wallet._
3. To touch lightly or slightly, or to cause one thing to come into gentle contact with another.
   - Simple: To touch something very lightly, or to just barely come into contact with it.
   - _The two boats kissed gently as they docked side by side._
   - _Watch the sander kiss the wood without gouging it._

## Noun

2. A pressing of the lips against someone or something, typically as a greeting or a sign of love or affection.
   - Simple: A touch with your lips to show love or to greet someone.
   - _Their first kiss happened under the stadium lights._
   - _She blew a kiss to the crowd as she left the stage._
4. An 'X' mark placed at the end of a letter or message, standing for a kiss sent from the writer to the reader.
   - Simple: An 'X' written at the end of a letter or message to mean a kiss.
   - _Her letter closed with a row of kisses._
   - _He signed the card with a single kiss beneath his initials._
5. A 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.
   - Simple: A small piece of chocolate candy with a pointed top.
   - _He grabbed a handful of kisses from the candy dish._
   - _Each guest found a single chocolate kiss on their plate._
6. Contact between the envelopes of two hot air balloons when they collide slowly in flight, usually without damage or injury.
   - Simple: A gentle, slow bump between two hot air balloons in the air that does no harm.
   - _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._

## Verb

7. To treat someone or something with fondness or tender care. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: To treat someone in a loving, gentle way.

## Other meanings

- (noun) The alignment of two bodies in the solar system so that they share the same longitude as seen from Earth, also called a conjunction.

## Origin

**Meanings 1, 3, 7** — 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.
**Meanings 2, 4–6** — 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.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/kiss (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).