lip-service

A form of lip service — Promising but empty talk; words without action or intention.

Meanings

nounlip-service (uncountable)
  1. alternativeuncountableAlternative form of lip service.
    1 more example

    41 year-old Thupten from Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture confirmed this threat of punishment. “The people in my area were very discontent when an election was announced. We knew that the candidates selected had already been carefully vetted by higher Chinese officials, and that our ‘voting’ was mere lip-service to Chinese claims of democracy, but we did it anyway.

    2000 September 28, “Corrupt and Farcical Elections”, in Racial Discrimination in Tibet, Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, →OCLC, page 116
Cite this entry
APA

lip-service. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lip-service

MLA

“lip-service.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lip-service. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “lip-service,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lip-service.

Source: lip-service on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.