Word.ws English Dictionary

tongue

/tʌŋ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northern England/tʊŋɡ/

tongue noun: the flexible muscular organ in the mouth that is used to move food around, for tasting and that is moved into various positions to modify the flow of air from the lungs in order to produce different sounds in speech.

tongue: the flexible muscular organ in the mouth that is used to move food around, for tasting and that is...
Image: Pepe308, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

tongue (countable and uncountable, plural tongues)

  1. The flexible muscular organ in the mouth that is used to move food around, for tasting and that is moved into various positions to modify the flow of air from the lungs in order to produce different sounds in speech.
    • But lering and lurking here and there like ſpies,c. 1515–1516, published 1568, John Skelton, Againſt venemous tongues enpoyſoned with ſclaunder and falſe detractions &c.
    Synonyms:
    glossa, lingua
  2. Such an organ, as taken from animals and used for food (especially from cows).
    • cold tongue with mustard
    • However you eat them, tongue and chicken and new bread are very good things, and no one minds being sprinkled a little with soda-water on a really fine hot day.1902, E. Nesbit, chapter 4, in Five Children and It, New York: Dodd, Mead, published 1905, page 136
  3. Any similar organ, such as the lingual ribbon, or odontophore, of a mollusk; the proboscis of a moth or butterfly; or the lingua of an insect.
  4. (metonymically) A language.
    • He was speaking in his native tongue.
    • […] that great Towre, which is so much renownd
      For tongues confusion in holie writ,1591, Ed[mund] Sp[enser], “The Ruines of Time”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. […], London: […] William Ponsonbie, […], →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    idiom, language, lingo
  5. (obsolete) The speakers of a language, collectively.
    • I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 66:18
  6. (obsolete) A voice, (the distinctive sound of a person's speech); accent (distinctive manner of pronouncing a language).
    • Who are you? Tell me, for more certainty,
      Albeit I’ll swear that I do know your tongue.c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • [...] one of [the prisoners], whom by his tongue I knew to be a Scotchman, lamented most piteously [...]1748, [Tobias Smollett], chapter 21, in The Adventures of Roderick Random. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] [William Strahan] for J[ohn] Osborn […], →OCLC, page 173
  7. A manner of speaking, often habitually.
    • She can have a sharp tongue when she's annoyed.
    • Al maters wel pondred and wel to be regarded,
      How ſhuld a fals lying tung then be rewarded?c. 1515–1516, published 1568, John Skelton, Againſt venemous tongues enpoyſoned with ſclaunder and falſe detractions &c.
    Synonyms:
    mouth
  8. (plural-normally) A person speaking in a specified manner.
    • I know that we must keep apart for a long while; cruel tongues would force us apart, if nothing else did.1860, George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Book 7, Chapter 3
    • […] it was obvious to his listeners that Pittypat, in his mind, was still a plump and charming miss of sixteen who must be sheltered against evil tongues.1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, chapter XXX, in Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC
  9. The power of articulate utterance; speech generally.
    • I was so overwhelmed my tongue deserted me.
    • Parrots imitating Human Tongue1717, “The Story of Pygmalion and the Statue”, in John Dryden, transl., Ovid’s Metamorphoses in fifteen books, London: Jacob Tonson, page 344
  10. (obsolete) Discourse; the fluency of speech or expression.
  11. (obsolete, uncountable) Discourse; fluency of speech or expression.
    • [...] fellows, soldiers, friends,
      Better consider what you have to do
      Than I, that have not well the gift of tongue,
      Can lift your blood up with persuasion.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • Much Tongue, and much Judgment seldom go together, for Talking and Thinking are Two Quite Differing Faculties,1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC
  12. (obsolete) Honorable discourse; eulogy.
    • She was born noble; let that title find her
      A private grave, but neither tongue nor honour!c. 1607–1621, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, “The Tragedy of Thierry and Theodoret”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley...
Show 13 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. (in plural, often) Glossolalia.
    • Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Corinthians 13:8
  2. In a shoe, the flap of material that goes between the laces and the foot (so called because it resembles a tongue in the mouth).
    • I caught a glimpse of a brown boot, the tongue flapping, the sole tied on with string.1990, J. M. Coetzee, chapter 3, in Age of Iron, New York: Random House, page 96
    • [...] her low-heeled shoes had flat fringed tongues to them—the kind of shoes you expected to see on a golf-course, or a Scottish highland, somewhere expensively hearty like that.2006, Sarah Waters, chapter 2, in The Night Watch, London: Virago, page 53
  3. Any large or long physical protrusion on an automotive or machine part or any other part that fits into a long groove on another part.
  4. A projection, or slender appendage or fixture.
    • the tongue of a buckle, or of a balance
  5. A long, narrow strip of land, projecting from the mainland into a sea or lake.
    • On one side was a coral reef; on the other a low tongue of land, covered with mangrove thickets that grew out into the water.1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, Chapter 12
  6. The pole of a towed or drawn vehicle or farm implement (e.g., trailer, cart, plow, harrow), by which it is pulled; for example, the pole of an ox cart, to the end of which the oxen are yoked.
    • Far to the right, where the main pile sloped out, his cart reared tongue upward, like a plow.1986, Hortense Calisher, The Bobby-Soxer, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, page 91
  7. The clapper of a bell.
    • The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve:c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First...
    • [...] the bell clanged so loud that he could hear the iron tongue clapping against the metal sides each time it swung to and fro [...]1940, Richard Wright, Native Son, London: Jonathan Cape, Book 2, p. 156
  8. (figuratively) An individual point of flame from a fire.
    • Then up a steep and dark and narrow stair
      We wound, until the torches’ fiery tongue
      Amid the gushing day beamless and pallid hung.1818, Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Revolt of Islam, London: C. and J. Ollier, Canto 3, stanza 13, p. 63
    • Now, in this decadent age the art of fire-making had been altogether forgotten on the earth. The red tongues that went licking up my heap of wood were an altogether new and strange thing to Weena.1895, H. G. Wells, chapter XI, in The Time Machine
  9. A small sole (type of fish).
  10. A short piece of rope spliced into the upper part of standing backstays, etc.; also, the upper main piece of a mast composed of several pieces.
  11. A reed.
  12. A division of formation; A layer or member of a formation that pinches out in one direction.
  13. (flags) The middle protrusion of a triple-tailed flag.

Verb

tongue (third-person singular simple present tongues, present participle tonguing, simple past and past participle tongued)

  1. (ambitransitive) On a wind instrument, to articulate a note by starting the air with a tap of the tongue, as though by speaking a 'd' or 't' sound (alveolar plosive).
    • Playing wind instruments involves tonguing on the reed or mouthpiece.
  2. (transitive) To manipulate with the tongue.
    • [T]he cattle tongued at the damp grass, licking rather than grazing. […]1985, Benjamin Capps, The Trail to Ogallala, TCU Press, →ISBN, page 88
  3. (slang, sometimes, transitive, vulgar) To lick, penetrate or manipulate with the tongue during flirting or oral sex.
    • Hot I tongued her. She kissed me. I was kissed. All yielding she tossed my hair. Kissed, she kissed me.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[8]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC
    • I was tonguing her ear and serenading her in a passionate whisper, mimicking Elvis, mimicking Joey.1986 May 6, T.C. Boyle, Greasy Lake and Other Stories, Penguin, →ISBN
  4. To protrude in relatively long, narrow sections.
    • a soil horizon that tongues into clay
  5. To join by means of a tongue and groove.
    • to tongue boards together
  6. (intransitive, obsolete) To talk; to prate.
  7. (obsolete, transitive) To speak; to utter.
    • ’Tis still a dream, or else such stuff as madmen
      Tongue and brain not;1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
  8. (obsolete, transitive) To chide; to scold.
    • How might she tongue me!c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  9. (archaic, transitive) To flense

Proper noun capitalized: Tongue

Tongue (countable and uncountable, plural Tongues)

  1. A village by the Kyle of Tongue in Sutherland, Highland council area, Scotland (OS grid ref NC5956).
  2. A surname.

tongue meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

tongue in Hindi

organ
जीभ jībh, ज़बान zabān, जिह्वा jihvā, लिसान lisān, रसना rasnā

tongue in Tamil

organ
நாக்கு nākku, நாவு nāvu, நா nā

tongue in Marathi

organ
जीभ jībh

tongue in Urdu

organ
جِیبھ jībh, زَبان zabān, زُبان zubān, لِسان lisān
More languagesFewer languages
tongue in Bengali
জিভ jibh, জিহ্বা jiubha, জিব jibo, জবান joban
tongue in Telugu
నాలుక nāluka, జిహ్వ jihva
tongue in Malayalam
നാക്ക് nākkŭ
tongue in Kannada
ನಾಲಿಗೆ nālige
tongue in Punjabi
ਜੀਭ jībh
tongue in Gujarati
જીભ jībh
tongue in Odia
ଜିଭ jibha
tongue in Sanskrit
जिह्वा jihvā́, लोला lolā, रसना rasanā, जुहू juhū
tongue in Sinhala
දිව diwa
tongue in Assamese
জিভা zibha
tongue in Nepali
जिब्रो jibro
tongue in Pashto
ژبه žëba
tongue in Tagalog
dila
tongue in Arabic
لِسَان lisān, لسان lesān
tongue in Malay
lidah, lisan, lidah kasut
tongue in Indonesian
lidah
tongue in Persian
زَبَان zabān, لِسَان lisān, زَبان zabân, لِسان lesân
tongue in Thai
ลิ้น lín, ชิวหา chiu-hǎa
tongue in Vietnamese
lưỡi
tongue in Myanmar
လျှာ hlya
Kashmiri
زؠو zyav, زَبان zabān

Examples of tongue in a sentence

  • When I pointed to any thing, she told me the Name of it in her own Tongue, so that in a few Days I was able to call for whatever I had a mind to.1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], London: […] Benj[amin]...
  • To dwell on a heath without studying its meanings was like wedding a foreigner without learning his tongue.1878 January–December, Thomas Hardy, chapter 7, in The Return of the Native […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], published...
  • If you do not speak English I am at your disposal with 187 other languages along with their various dialects and sub-tongues.1956, Cyril Hume, Forbidden Planet, spoken by Robby the Robot:
  • Many of them come from distant places and although they speak your tongue they are ignorant of your customs.1958 June 17, Chinua Achebe, chapter 23, in Things Fall Apart, New York, N.Y.: Astor-Honor, published 1959, →OCLC, part 2, page 200:

All 40 example sentences with tongue

Synonyms of tongue

All synonyms of tongue

Forms of tongue

Noun
pluraltongues
alternative form (obsolete)tong
alternative form (obsolete)tonge
alternative form (obsolete)toong
alternative form (obsolete)toongue
alternative form (obsolete)toung
alternative form (obsolete)tounge
alternative form (obsolete)toungue
alternative form (obsolete)tung
alternative form (obsolete)tunge
Verb
third-person singular presenttongues
present participletonguing
past participletongued
pasttongued
Proper noun
pluralTongues

Past tense of tongue: tongued

Plural of tongue: tongues

Origin of tongue

From Middle English tongue, a late spelling of tong(e), tung(e), from Old English tunge, from Proto-West Germanic *tungā (“tongue”), from Proto-Germanic *tungǭ (“tongue”), from Proto-Indo-European *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s (“tongue”). Doublet of langue and lingua. Cognates Germanic: West Frisian tonge, Dutch tong, Luxembourgish Zong, German Zunge, Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk tunge, Faroese, Icelandic, and Swedish tunga, Gothic 𐍄𐌿𐌲𐌲𐍉 (tuggō). Italic: Asturian and Catalan llengua, Aragonese luenga, French langue, Galician, Italian, and Latin lingua, Leonese llingua, Mirandese lhéngua, Portuguese língua, Spanish lengua. Celtic: Irish teanga. Slavic: Belarusian and Russian язык (jazyk), Bulgarian ези́к (ezík), Czech and Slovak jazyk, Macedonian јазик (jazik), Polish język, Serbo-Croatian jèzik (“tongue”), Slovene jézik, Ukrainian язи́к (jazýk). Indo-Iranic: Persian زبان (zabân), Sanskrit जि॒ह्वा (jihvā́). The expected modern spelling, both phonetically and etymologically, would be tung. Using ⟨on⟩ for ⟨un⟩ was fairly common in Middle English; compare e.g. yong (“young”). The final ⟨gue⟩ arose to prevent tonge being misread with a soft /dʒ/. However, this spelling only became...

Words formed from tongue

Phrases with tongue

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Words that rhyme with tongue

25 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about tongue

What does tongue mean?
Tongue means the flexible muscular organ in the mouth that is used to move food around, for tasting and that is moved into various positions to modify the flow of air from the lungs in order to produce different sounds in speech.
What is tongue in Hindi?
Tongue in Hindi is जीभ (jībh), ज़बान (zabān), जिह्वा (jihvā). See Tongue meaning in Hindi.
How do you use tongue in a sentence?
When I pointed to any thing, she told me the Name of it in her own Tongue, so that in a few Days I was able to call for whatever I had a mind to.
What part of speech is tongue?
Tongue can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce tongue?
Tongue is pronounced /tʌŋ/ (UK).
What is the plural of tongue?
The plural of tongue is tongues.

Words near tongue in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tongue (page history and authors); 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-uk-tongue.ogg, en-us-tongue.ogg.

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