[read] {one's} lips
1
to observe the shape and movements of someone's lips in order to interpret and understand what they are saying
- To understand the foreign language speaker, she had to read his lips carefully.
- He was so far away that she had to resort to reading his lips to grasp the message.
- The spy secretly read the enemy's lips to gather intelligence.
- I had to read his lips because the room was too noisy to hear him clearly.