Word.ws English Dictionary

tonguage

tonguage noun: any activity involving the tongue; tonguing.

Noun

tonguage (uncountable)

  1. Any activity involving the tongue; tonguing.
  2. (nonstandard, rare) Language; spoken language, as opposed to other forms of language (body language, written language, etc.).
    • Whether the ideas underlying them are expressed and conveyed by eyeage or by tonguage is a detail that matters nothing.1890, Samuel Butler, Essays on Life, Art, and Science
    • I like the French now but can't get on with the Italian tonguage (good word).1956, Edward Elgar, Percy Marshall Young, Letters of Edward Elgar and other writings

Examples of tonguage in a sentence

  • In all the districts of Maharashtra except Aurangabad and Bhandara, the number of persons who returned Hindi as a subsidiary language outnumber those with Hindi as mother tonguage.1961, India. Office of the Registrar General, Census of India, 1961: Maharashtra:
  • We have a language of social relations, even though we're not thoroughly aware of it— but it isn't all "language" in the sense of "tonguage."1973, Howard Paul Becker, Man in reciprocity:

Origin of tonguage

From tongue + -age modelled after language; or a blend of tongue + language.

Questions about tonguage

What does tonguage mean?
Tonguage means any activity involving the tongue; tonguing.
How do you use tonguage in a sentence?
In all the districts of Maharashtra except Aurangabad and Bhandara, the number of persons who returned Hindi as a subsidiary language outnumber those with Hindi as mother tonguage.
What part of speech is tonguage?
Tonguage is a noun.

Words near tonguage in the dictionary

  1. Tongshan
  2. tongsman
  3. tongsmen
  4. tongster
  5. tongsters
  6. tonguage
  7. tongue
  8. tongue and groove
  9. tongue and grooves
  10. tongue bath
  11. tongue baths

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tonguage (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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Cite this entry: “tonguage.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tonguage. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.