Word Direct Answers

What does "tongue" mean?

Tongue: The power of articulate utterance; speech. Parrots imitating human tongue. Dryden.

Additional senses

  1. 2.Discourse; fluency of speech or expression. Much tongue and much judgment seldom go together. L. Estrange.
  2. 3.Honorable discourse; eulogy. [Obs.] She was born noble; let that title find her a private grave, but neither tongue nor honor. Beau. & Fl.
  3. 4.A language; the whole sum of words used by a particular nation; as, the English tongue. Chaucer. Whose tongue thou shalt not understand. Deut. xxviii.
  4. 5.To speak all tongues. Milton.
  5. 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. 1 John iii.
  6. 7.7. A people having a distinct language. A will gather all nations and tongues. Isa. lxvi.
  7. 8.8. (Zoöl.) (a) The lingual ribbon, or odontophore, of a mollusk. (b) The proboscis of a moth or a butterfly. (c) The lingua of an insect.
  8. 9.(Zoöl.) Any small sole.
  9. 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 sort 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. See Language.
  10. 11.To speak; to utter. "Such stuff as madmen tongue." Shak.
  11. 12.To chide; to scold. How might she tongue me. Shak .
  12. 13.(Mus.) To modulate or modify with the tongue, as notes, in playing the flute and some other wind instruments.
  13. 14.To join means of a tongue and grove; as, to tongue boards together.
  14. 15.To talk; to prate. Dryden.
  15. 16.(Mus.) To use the tongue in forming the notes, as in playing the flute and some other wind instruments.

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