We examine an everyday Caribbean oral gesture, kiss-teeth or (KST), exploring previously-unresolved problems of meaning. Such forms are as examples of African cultural continuity across the Diaspora, often overlooked despite continuing interest in historical links between Caribbean Creoles and African communication systems. Forms such as (KST) are typically treated as lexical items: dictionary entries provide overlapping lists of emotions or affective states (eg, “scorn, impatience”) for each of several entries (suck-teeth, chups, etc.). Such approaches are inadequate, as the meaning of (KST) is not a single semantic unit, while lists are incomplete, contingent and inadequate. We distinguish ideophones from metalinguistic labels; consider geographical distribution and diffusion with respect to both functions and particular forms; and analyze related signs as a set, with reference to shared pragmatic function. (KST) is an inherently evaluative and inexplicit oral gesture with a sound-symbolic component, and a remarkably stable set of functions across the Diaspora: an interactional resource with multiple possibilities for sequential organization, often used to negotiate moral positioning among speakers and referents, and closely linked to community norms and expectations of conduct and attitude. It participates in a system of indirect discourse, requiring co-construction of intention by speaker and hearers. Moreover, it functions in personal narratives to mark both internal and external evaluation, sometimes ambiguously. Each of the proposed functions is illustrated with data ranging from historical to contemporary, oral to literary, monologic to interactional. Esther Figueroa & Peter L Patrick