Word.ws English Dictionary

civil tongue

civil tongue noun: a polite manner of speaking.

Noun

civil tongue (plural civil tongues)

  1. (idiomatic) A polite manner of speaking.
    • "[T]here would not have been the least offence had the youth only possessed a civil tongue."1855, Charlotte M. Yonge, chapter 3, in The Lances Of Lynwood
    • "Mister Duane," began Bosomer, in low, stinging tones, "I happen to be Luke Stevens's side-pardner. . . . An' I want the hoss an' them guns," he shouted.
      "You or anybody else can have them, for all I care. I just fetched them in. But the pack is mine," replied Duane. "And say, I befriended your...1915, Zane Grey, chapter 4, in The Lone Star Ranger

Forms of civil tongue

pluralcivil tongues

Words formed from civil tongue

Questions about civil tongue

What does civil tongue mean?
Civil tongue means a polite manner of speaking.
What part of speech is civil tongue?
Civil tongue is a noun.
What is the plural of civil tongue?
The plural of civil tongue is civil tongues.

Words near civil tongue in the dictionary

  1. civil status
  2. civil statuses
  3. civil suit
  4. civil suits
  5. civil time
  6. civil tongue
  7. civil tongues
  8. civil trial
  9. civil trials
  10. civil twilight
  11. civil twilights

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: civil tongue (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-civil tongue.ogg.

Cite this entry: “civil tongue.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/civil_tongue. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.