tongue
Forms
- Plural
- tongues
- present (v1)
- tongue
- past (v2)
- tongued
- past participle (v3)
- tongued
- present participle
- tonguing
- 3rd person singular
- tongues
Definitions
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.
2.Such an organ, as taken from animals and used for food (especially from cows).
- 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.
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.A language.
- He was speaking in his native tongue.
- To dwell on a heath without studying its meanings was like wedding a foreigner without learning his tongue.
- Many of them come from distant places and although they speak your tongue they are ignorant of your customs.
1.To protrude in relatively long, narrow sections.
2.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.
3.To manipulate with the tongue.
4.To lick, penetrate or manipulate with the tongue during flirting or oral sex.(slang)
- I was tonguing her ear and serenading her in a passionate whisper, mimicking Elvis, mimicking Joey.
- Hot I tongued her. She kissed me. I was kissed. All yielding she tossed my hair. Kissed, she kissed me.
- I was tonguing her sweet spot. "Shit, that's nice." Her breaths got faster as we locked into a delicious rhythm that was hitting my clit just right.
Frequency
Overall
Uncommon· #3022
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Rare
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Uncommon
Etymology
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 lengua (“tongue”), Belarusian and Russian язык (jazyk, “tongue”), Bulgarian ези́к (ezík, “tongue”), Czech and Slovak jazyk (“tongue”), Macedonian јазик (jazik, “tongue”), Polish język (“tongue”), Serbo-Croatian jèzik (“tongue”), Slovene jézik (“tongue”), Ukrainian язи́к (jazýk, “tongue”), Persian زبان (zabân, “tongue”), Sanskrit जि॒ह्वा (jihvā́, “tongue”). Doublet of langue and lingua.