taken as comb. form of L. labium lip, (a) in Phonetics, with the sense ‘formed with lips and some other organ),’ as labio-dental adj. and sb., labio-guttural, -lingual, -nasal, -palatal (hence labio-palatalize vb.), -velar adjs.; (nonce-wd.) labio-palato-nasal adj.; (b) Path., ‘affecting or having to do with the lips and (some other part),’ as labio-alveolar, labio-glosso-laryngeal, -pharyngeal, labio-mental [L. mentum chin], etc. (Syd. Soc. Lex., 1888). Also labiomancy [Gr. μαντεία divination], lip-reading.
1669. Holder, Elem. Speech, 71. P. and B. are Labial: Ph. and Bh. are *Labio-dental. Ibid., 138. The Labiodentals.
1748. Phil. Trans., XLV. 405. The labial and labio-dental Consonants.
1887. Cook, trans. Sievers’ O. E. Gram., 100. A sonant spirant, either labial or labio-dental.
1874. A. J. Ellis, E. E. Pronunc., IV. xi. § 2 No. 7. 1353. Labials … Labio-dentals … *Labio-linguals.
1876. Clin. Soc. Trans., IX. 82. Progressive *labio-glosso-laryngeal paralysis.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., IV. 862. In labio-glosso-laryngeal paralysis anæsthesia of the larynx has been observed.
1879. H. Nicol, in Encycl. Brit., IX. 632/1. French and Northern Provençal also agree in changing Latin ū from a *labio-guttural to a *labio-palatal vowel.
1686. Plot, Staffordsh., 288. So … skill’d was she in this Art (which we may call *Labiomancy) … that … when in bed, if she might lay but her hand on their lipps so as to feel the motion of them, she could perfectly understand what her bedfellows said.
1812. Europ. Mag., LXII. 287. [Title of article.] Labiomancy.
1874. A. J. Ellis, E. E. Pronunc., IV. xi. § 2 No. 7. 1350. Granting that consonants may be labialised, or palatalised, or *labio-palatalised.
1867. O. W. Holmes, Guardian Angel, ii. (1891), 16. A sort of half-suppressed *labio-palato-nasal utterance.
1894. Lindsay, Latin Lang. Index, *Labiovelar Gutt[urals].
