languettes

Noun

languette (plural languettes)

1. A tongue-shaped implement.
   • The languette, or plate, is fixed between the two rows of caps, one of its extremities upon the two right-hand caps, the other extending on the left beyond the base of the rectangle.1854, The United Service Magazine, page 98
2. A tongue-like organ found on tunicates.
   • This naturalist believes that the apparatus by the aid of which the act is performed is the series of dorsal languettes or the organs which represent them.1892, Annals & Magazine of Natural History, page 483
3. bony tongue-shaped structure on the mandible
   • At the root of the languette, and a little below the middle of the interior space which intervenes between the mandibles, is placed the pharynx.1834, James Wilson, James Duncan, Entomologia Edinensis
4. fleshy tongue-shaped structure
   • Lastly, the stem of each auditory hair presents a sort of appendage (the languette), to which the nerve of the hair is attached.1865, The Transactions of the Microscopical Society of London
5. A tongue-shaped design used to decorate Ancient Greek pottery.
   • The foregoing analysis suggests that smaller dimensions and decoration with languettes are characteristic of hydrias in our assemblage, though neither criterion need be applicable in other regions or even in other PG periods at Lefkandi. (41)1979, Petros G. Themelis, John Boardman, Lefkandi: The protogeometric building at Toumba
6. A type of decorative hood used on a woman's bodice in the seventeenth century.

See all 9 meanings of languette