lipstick

Plurallipsticks (some meanings)

Formslipsticks, lipsticking, lipsticked

1. 1
   noununcountable

   Colored cosmetic applied to the lips.

   She applied a coat of lipstick before the interview.

   The smudged lipstick left a mark on the napkin.

   Note

   A plain compound of lip and stick, so the name of the substance comes from the shape it is sold in, the stick itself. In this sense the word is a mass noun: you wear lipstick, put on some lipstick, or choose red lipstick, with no article and no plural. Once you count it (three lipsticks), you mean the sticks.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A single solid stick or tube of colored lip cosmetic.

   A lipstick had melted in the hot car.

   She lined up her lipsticks by color on the shelf.

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To apply lip makeup to a mouth, surface, or object.

   Models often lipstick their lips in bold colors for runway shows.

   He lipsticked the doll's face to amuse his daughter.

   Similarpaint, rouge

   Note

   The verb is regular: lipsticked, lipsticking, with no doubled consonant. Its object is whatever gets painted, whether a mouth, a face or a doll. The -ing form also works as a noun for the act itself, as when Liberty magazine described in 1936 "a mouth that needed no lipsticking."

4. 4
   nounslangcountableabbreviationellipsis

   Ellipsis of lipstick lesbian.

   She came out as a lipstick during college.

   The bar was full of lipsticks that night.

   Note

   A clipped form that drops the head noun of lipstick lesbian and keeps only the modifier. It names a lesbian with a glamorously feminine style, the opposite of butch. As a full noun it takes a plural, and Stephen Siciliano's The Sidewalk Smokers Club (2006) even capitalizes it as "The Lipsticks." Because it is slang, the full compound is the clearer choice in neutral writing.

5. 5
   nouncolloquialcountable

   A colloquial term for the visible red tip of a male dog's penis.

   The vet reassured the owner that a bit of visible lipstick was perfectly normal.

   Their excited spaniel flashed his lipstick at the dog park, to everyone's amusement.

   Note

   The joke depends on the tube. A lipstick twists up out of its case and back down, and the slang follows the same picture: the dog has "his lipstick out," it is "all the way out," or he is told to "put his lipstick back in its case." The word lets owners mention something awkward without naming it, which is why it often shows up in comic writing.

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