Also 5 blabyr, 6–7 blaber. [First in comb. blabyr-lyppyd, in the Catholicon 1483, the Prompt. c. 1440 having the earlier babbyr-lyppyd, used also by Langland 1377 (see BABBER-LIPPED). But there was also a 15–17th-c. form blab-lipped (see BLAB sb.2), which is of more simple explanation: cf. BLOB, BLOBBER, BLUBBER, BUBBLE, all expressing the sense of swelling or inflation.] Swollen, protruding; said of the lips (e.g., of negroes), and sometimes the cheeks.
1552. Huloet, Blabber lyppes, dimissa labra.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., I. 530. The divels of Crowland, with their blabber lips [labiis pendentibus].
a. 1627. Middleton, Sp. Gipsy, IV. iii. She has full blabber cheeks.
1687. Shadwell, Juvenal, 108. What ugly blabber-lipps had he!
1833. Coleridge, in Fraser’s Mag., VII. 177. A waxy face and a blabber lip. [In Poems, III. 87 (1834), ‘blubber lip.’]
Hence Blabber-lipped ppl. a.
[1377, 1440, 1607; see BABBER-LIPPED.]
1483. Cath. Angl., 33. Blabyrlyppyd, broccus, labrosus.
c. 1485. Digby Myst., III. 927. Ye … blabyr-lyppyd bycchys.
1601. Holland, Pliny, XI. xxxvii. Others againe who are blabber-lipped are named in Latine Labiones.
1653. Greaves, Seraglio, 101. The most … blabber-lipped, and flat nosed girles that may be had through all Egypt.
1704. Lond. Gaz., No. 4034/4. Run away … a short Negro Man … blabber Lip’d … long Heel’d.
