mouth the words

English

Verb

mouth the words (third-person singular simple present mouths the words, present participle mouthing the words, simple past and past participle mouthed the words)

1. (literally) To mouth words in the sense "to make the actions of speech, without producing sound."
   • 1960, Dorothy Uris, “The Family Speech Workshop”, in Everybody's Book of Better Speaking‎^[1], →OCLC, page 73:

     Indeed, on Dick Clark's madly popular teen-age TV show the various acts never sing at all, but merely mouth the words to their own taped recordings.

2. (idiomatic) To speak insincerely.
   • 1935, Moissaye Joseph Olgin, “The Struggle Against Fascism”, in Why Communism? Plain Talks on Vital Problems‎^[2], 2nd Revised edition, page 48:

     They mouth the words “democracy” and “Americanism”, but they inject in their preachments national hatred, national aggrandizement, and glorification of the fascist dictatorships.

   • 1991, William Jennings Jefferson, quotee, Hearing on the Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act of 1965: Library Programs: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education of the Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, One Hundred Second Congress, First Session, Hearing Held in Washington, DC, April 16, 1991‎^[3], →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, HDL loc.law/llconghear.00186243572, archived from the original on 30 April 2015, page 5:

     By proposing to eliminate Title II programs for fiscal year 1992, President Bush is sending America's colleges and universities, and those they seek to educate a most disheartening message: that he is willing to mouth the words “educational excellence,” but he is not willing to invest in the programs that can make such excellence realizable.