[L. = ‘lip.’] A lip or lip-like part. (Cf. LABRUM.)
1. Anat. † a. One of the sides of the aperture of a vein. Obs.
1597. A. M., trans. Guillemeau’s Fr. Chirurg., 28/4. When we bende the elbowe, both the labia or lippes of the vayn do separate themselves.
b. Chiefly in pl. labia, in full labia pudendi: The lips of the female pudendum; the folds of integument on either side of the vulva.
1722. Quincy, Lex. Physico-Med. (ed. 2), 174. The Labia, or Lips of the great Chink.
1806. Med. Jrnl., XV. 21. When the uterus remains within the labia.
1872. T. G. Thomas, Dis. Women, 101. An ichorous, fetid, nauseating fluid bathes the labia majora.
1879. T. Bryant, Pract. Surg., II. 229. In women, the labium may be the seat of an inguinal hernia.
2. In insects, crustaceans, etc., the organ that constitutes the lower covering or ‘floor’ of the mouth and serves as an under lip. (Cf. LABRUM.)
1828. Stark, Elem. Nat. Hist., II. 209. They [Myriapoda] have … a labium or lip without palpi, formed of united portions.
1862. in Goldsmith’s Nat. Hist., II. 575. The mouth has usually two mandibles, a labium, or lip below, and from three to five pairs of jaws.
1878. Bell, Gegenbaur’s Comp. Anat., 245. When those gnathites are fused in the middle line the so-called labium is formed.
b. Conch., The inner lip of a univalve shell.
1839. Sowerby, Conch. Man., 54. Labium, or inner lip. Is used to express that side of the aperture which is nearest the axis, and generally contiguous to the body whorl, the lower part of this, when sufficiently distinct from the part which overwraps the body whorl, is called the Columella.
1851. Richardson, Geol., viii. 240. The labium, or columellar lip.
3. Bot. The lip, esp. the lower or anterior lip, of a labiate corolla. (Cf. GALEA.)
1823. Crabb, Technol. Dict., Labium, the Lip, the exterior part of a labiate or ringent corolla. It is distinguished into upper and lower; but sometimes the upper lip is called the labium, and the lower galea.
1880. Gray, Struct. Bot., 419. A bilabiate corolla or calyx … is cleft into an upper (superior or posterior) and a lower (inferior or anterior) portion or lip (labium).
4. The lip of an organ pipe (Stainer & Barrett, Dict. Mus. Terms).
