Lisp

v. i.	1.	To pronounce the sibilant letter s imperfectly; to give s and z the sound of th; - a defect common among children. [imp. & p. p. Lisped (lĭspt); p. pr. & vb. n. Lisping.]
	2.	To speak with imperfect articulation; to mispronounce, as a child learning to talk. As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came. - Pope.
	3.	To speak hesitatingly with a low voice, as if afraid. Lest when my lisping, guilty tongue should halt. - Drayton.
v. t.	1.	To pronounce with a lisp.
	2.	To utter with imperfect articulation; to express with words pronounced imperfectly or indistinctly, as a child speaks; hence, to express by the use of simple, childlike language. To speak unto them after their own capacity, and to lisp the words unto them according as the babes and children of that age might sound them again. - Tyndale.
	3.	To speak with reserve or concealment; to utter timidly or confidentially; as, to lisp treason.
n.	1.	The habit or act of lisping. See Lisp, v. i., 1. I overheard her answer, with a very pretty lisp, "O! Strephon, you are a dangerous creature."
	1.	(Computers) a high-level computer programming language in which statements and data are in the form of lists, enclosed in parentheses; - used especially for rapid development of prototype programs in artificial intelligence applications .

Noun	1.	lisp - a speech defect that involves pronouncing s like voiceless th and z like voiced th
	2.	LISP - a flexible procedure-oriented programing language that manipulates symbols in the form of lists Synonyms: list-processing language
Verb	1.	lisp - speak with a lisp

(language)

Lisp - LISt Processing language. (Or mythically "Lots of Irritating Superfluous Parentheses"). Artificial Intelligence's mother tongue, a symbolic, functional, recursive language based on the ideas of lambda-calculus, variable-length lists and trees as fundamental data types and the interpretation of code as data and vice-versa. Data objects in Lisp are lists and atoms. Lists may contain lists and atoms. Atoms are either numbers or symbols. Programs in Lisp are themselves lists of symbols which can be treated as data. Most implementations of Lisp allow functions with side-effects but there is a core of Lisp which is purely functional. All Lisp functions and programs are expressions that return values; this, together with the high memory use of Lisp, gave rise to Alan Perlis's famous quip (itself a take on an Oscar Wilde quote) that "Lisp programmers know the value of everything and the cost of nothing". The original version was LISP 1, invented by John McCarthy at MIT in the late 1950s. Lisp is actually older than any other high level language still in use except Fortran. Accordingly, it has undergone considerable change over the years. Modern variants are quite different in detail. The dominant HLL among hackers until the early 1980s, Lisp now shares the throne with C. See languages of choice. One significant application for Lisp has been as a proof by example that most newer languages, such as COBOL and Ada, are full of unnecessary crocks. When the Right Thing has already been done once, there is no justification for bogosity in newer languages. See also Association of Lisp Users, Common Lisp, Franz Lisp, MacLisp, Portable Standard Lisp, Interlisp, Scheme, ELisp, Kamin's interpreters.

Lots of Isolated Silly Parentheses (LISP, slang)aphonia, artificial voice, assibilate, assibilation, broken speech, broken tones, broken voice, buzz, childish treble, choked voice, cracked voice, croak, crow, drawl, dysarthria, dyslalia, dyslogia, dysphasia, dysphonia, dysphrasia, effervesce, effervescence, effervescing, falsetto, fizz, fizzle, fizzling, frication, frictional rustling, harshness, hawking voice, hiss, hissing, hoarseness, hush, hushing, idioglossia, idiolalia, impairment of speech, lisping, loss of voice, mince, muzzy speech, nasal tone, nasalization, quaver, rhonchus, shake, shush, shushing, sibilance, sibilate, sibilation, siffle, sigmatism, siss, sissing, sizz, sizzle, sizzling, sneeze, sneezing, sniff, sniffle, snore, snort, snuff, snuffle, speech defect, speech impediment, spit, splutter, sputter, squash, squelch, squish, sternutation, stertor, swish, talk incoherently, tremor, twang, wheeze, whish, whistle, whistling, white noise, whiz, whoosh, zip

Definitions Index: # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

About this site and copyright information - Online Dictionary Home - Privacy Policy