Word.ws English Dictionary

gives tongue

gives tongue is the third-person singular simple present indicative of give tongue.

Meaning of give tongue

Verb

give tongue (third-person singular simple present gives tongue, present participle giving tongue, simple past gave tongue, past participle given tongue)

  1. To bark; to howl, bay.
    • The hounds gave tongue as they scented the fox nearby.
  2. To cry.
    • As the boat drew near the guillemots gave tongue. The sound came against the wind fierce and complaining, antagonistic like the voice of loneliness crying out against them and telling them to be gone—be gone—be gone!1919, Henry De Vere Stacpoole, The Beach of Dreams, Toronto: S. B. Gundy, Part 1, Chapter 6, p. 65
  3. To ring out, sound.
    • […] the bugles gave tongue jubilantly:1890, Rudyard Kipling, “The Drums of the Fore and Aft”, in Wee Willie Winkie and Other Stories, Allahabad: A.H. Wheeler, page 88
  4. To vocalize audibly.
    • His sympathetic school-fellows grasped the full humour of the situation as one man, and gave tongue once more in chorus.1903, P. G. Wodehouse, “Harrison’s Slight Error”, in Tales of St. Austin’s, London: A. & C. Black, published 1923, page 45
    Synonyms:
    call out, cry out
  5. To give expression to (something); to express.
    • She felt unable to give tongue to her feelings.

Questions about gives tongue

What is gives tongue the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Gives tongue is the third-person singular simple present indicative of give tongue.

Words near gives tongue in the dictionary

  1. gives the stem
  2. gives the time of day
  3. gives the word
  4. gives thought
  5. gives toco
  6. gives tongue
  7. gives two fucks
  8. gives two shits
  9. gives two squirts
  10. gives two squirts of piss
  11. gives up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gives tongue (page history and authors); give 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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