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Tongue   /təŋ/   Listen
noun
Tongue  n.  
1.
(Anat.) An organ situated in the floor of the mouth of most vertebrates and connected with the hyoid arch. Note: The tongue is usually muscular, mobile, and free at one extremity, and in man other mammals is the principal organ of taste, aids in the prehension of food, in swallowing, and in modifying the voice as in speech. "To make his English sweet upon his tongue."
2.
The power of articulate utterance; speech. "Parrots imitating human tongue."
3.
Discourse; fluency of speech or expression. "Much tongue and much judgment seldom go together."
4.
Honorable discourse; eulogy. (Obs.) "She was born noble; let that title find her a private grave, but neither tongue nor honor."
5.
A language; the whole sum of words used by a particular nation; as, the English tongue. "Whose tongue thou shalt not understand." "To speak all tongues."
6.
Speech; words or declarations only; opposed to thoughts or actions. "My little children, let us love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth."
7.
A people having a distinct language. "A will gather all nations and tongues."
8.
(Zool.)
(a)
The lingual ribbon, or odontophore, of a mollusk.
(b)
The proboscis of a moth or a butterfly.
(c)
The lingua of an insect.
9.
(Zool.) Any small sole.
10.
That which is considered as resembing an animal's tongue, in position or form. Specifically:
(a)
A projection, or slender appendage or fixture; as, the tongue of a buckle, or of a balance.
(b)
A projection on the side, as of a board, which fits into a groove.
(c)
A point, or long, narrow strip of land, projecting from the mainland into a sea or a lake.
(d)
The pole of a vehicle; especially, the pole of an ox cart, to the end of which the oxen are yoked.
(e)
The clapper of a bell.
(f)
(Naut.) 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.
(g)
(Mus.) Same as Reed, n., 5.
To hold the tongue, to be silent.
Tongue bone (Anat.), the hyoid bone.
Tongue grafting. See under Grafting.
Synonyms: Language; speech; expression. See Language.


verb
Tongue  v. t.  (past & past part. tongued; pres. part. tonguing)  
1.
To speak; to utter. "Such stuff as madmen tongue."
2.
To chide; to scold. "How might she tongue me."
3.
(Mus.) To modulate or modify with the tongue, as notes, in playing the flute and some other wind instruments.
4.
To join means of a tongue and grove; as, to tongue boards together.


Tongue  v. i.  
1.
To talk; to prate.
2.
(Mus.) To use the tongue in forming the notes, as in playing the flute and some other wind instruments.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Tongue" Quotes from Famous Books



... of moderate elevation, stands on a tongue of land that projects from the coast between the south of Palestine and Egypt. It is washed on the north by the sea which, on this day, is not gleaming, as is its wont, in translucent ultramarine; its more distant depths slowly surge in blue-black waves, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... I did not at the time dwell at a greater length upon the Convention of Cintra.... That Convention and even the battle of Vimiera, at one time the theme of every tongue, are effaced from the memory of even us their contemporaries by the more brilliant achievements of the British army—by successes which have blotted out all recollections of former errors. I can scarcely recall to my mind ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... the rather broad feet, and the delicate duskiness, which had so worked upon her in imagination and in fact the evening before. She put her hand kindly on that long slim hand stretched out beside her, and, because she knew not what else to speak, and because the tongue is very perverse at times,—saying the opposite of what is expected,—she herself blundered ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... hopes or desires to supersede any other language by the introduction of Esperanto. No one dreams of inducing all peoples that on earth do dwell to abandon the use of their own languages, in their intercourse with men of the same tongue within the limits of their national and domestic relations. Esperanto is only put forward as a second language which if universally adopted would enable the natives of every land to communicate easily with any foreigner, no matter what ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 1 • Various
... gave his friend a hint; for Madelon heard no more about the saints, and was left to puzzle out meanings and stories for the pictures for herself—and queer enough ones she often made, very likely. On the other hand, the American, who liked to talk to her in his own tongue, and to make her chatter to him in return, would tell her many a story of the old master painters, of Cimabue and the boy Giotto, of Lionardo da Vinci, and half a dozen others; old, old tales of the days when, as we sometimes fancy, looking back through ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter


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