to pay lip service
7
7.2
- phrasal verb
- /peɪ lɪp ˈsɜrvɪs/
- Informal
:
dar solo palabras
- By contrast, there are numerous groups that, while paying lip service to the two-state solution, reject Israel's right to exist.
- pays lip service to the idea
- pay lip service to the notion
- merely pays lip service
You know, people pay lip service to trust.
- You know, people pay lip service to trust.
- This is not just, this is not something for radical chic white liberals to sort of pay lip service to.
- You could have demanded that countries would not be simply paying lip service to democratic procedures, but will will carry general reforms.
- What they do is pay lip service to the vagaries of a of a pretentious mission statement, which simply reeks of hypocrisy.
Examples
-
In exchange, they have had to pay lip service to Federal Reserve autonomy.
Academic text (1991) -
Today's ambient music often pays lip service to this idea of fitting in.
Blog text (16) -
Employees know what top management really believes in and what they only pay lip service to.
Academic text (1994) -
Unless the school leadership takes an active role, teachers will pay lip service to the character education program but will not really support it.
Academic text (2002) -
I think that most of my colleagues, and politicians in general, just pay lip service to one god or another.
Academic text (2008) -
Athletes have every incentive to dope, and most governing bodies have paid lip service to it.
Blog text (29) -
At present, unfortunately, senior counterterrorism officials refuse even to pay lip service to the need for such reforms.
Academic text (2006) -
Quality assurance is not the only area in which the state has sought to reassert control while paying lip service to university autonomy.
Academic text (2006) -
Aren't politicians just paying lip service when they talk about federalism and limited government?
Blog text (15) -
Many companies pay lip service to environmental protection while continuing to pollute.
Antonyms
How Sincere
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to express support without intending to act' is a conventionalized idiom: the parts 'lip' and 'service' do not compositionaly yield that sense for an average B1 learner who only knows the literal meanings. 'Pay' simply means 'give', so knowing the three constituents does not make the idiomatic sense predictable; this makes the expression opaque.
Etymology
The idiom pay lip service may come from the image of 'paying' someone with only lip service—speaking polite words from the mouth instead of doing real work. That's why it means 'to say you support something but not do anything about it'.