tongue

CEFRB1

/tʌŋ/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    The movable organ in the mouth used for tasting and speaking.

  2. 02

    noun

    A spoken language or style of speech.

Examples

  • A sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.

  • He clicked his tongue to attract their attention.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. 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.

  2. Such an organ, as taken from animals and used for food (especially from cows).

  3. 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.

More examples

In context

  • You've got to learn to hold your tongue.

  • He was speaking in his native tongue.

  • But lering and lurking here and there like ſpies,

Synonyms

Quick test

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The doctor asked the patient to stick out his blank for examination.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

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”). Cognate with Dutch tong (“tongue”), German Zunge (“tongue”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk tunge (“tongue”), Faroese, Icelandic, and Swedish tunga (“tongue”), Gothic 𐍄𐌿𐌲𐌲𐍉 (tuggō, “tongue”), Irish teanga (“tongue”), Asturian and Catalan llengua (“tongue”), Aragonese luenga (“tongue”), French langue (“tongue”), Galician, Italian, and Latin lingua (“tongue”), Leonese llingua (“tongue”), Mirandese lhéngua (“tongue”), Portuguese língua (“tongue”), Spanish...