Recent corpus-based research of lexical items has served as a foundation for an understanding of the properties of constituents of a text. The present study attempts to characterize the contextual meanings of ip ‘mouth’, as part of the research on body-part terms, through an examination of the word in the Sejong Project corpus. First, this research, pointing out problems of encyclopedic definitions of ip in dictionaries, shows that the meanings of ip can be properly understood when it is examined in the context where it occurs. Second, this study investigates the meanings of ip in terms of its functional roles. Examination shows that ip is described as an organ which performs the following roles in the text: (i) referring to the physical body part on the face, (ii) producing utterances/articulating sounds, (iii) displaying emotional, psychological attitudes, (iv) perceiving tactile senses, (v) taking in food, and (vi) breathing and smoking. Examination shows that ip is most frequently described as an organ for producing utterances or articulating voice sounds. Third, this research shows that the figurative use of ip is limited, showing low frequency. Fourth, this study shows that ip cooccurs with particular predicates, forming collation patterns. Finally, this research suggests that a corpus-based analysis of lexical items can serve as a foundation for better understanding of texts.