speak in tongues

speak in tongues

English

Etymology

Calque of Ancient Greek ἐλάλουν τε γλώσσαις (eláloun te glṓssais)

Verb

speak in tongues (third-person singular simple present speaks in tongues, present participle speaking in tongues, simple past spoke in tongues, past participle spoken in tongues)

1. To speak in a language unknown to the speaker, especially when in a state of religious ecstasy; glossolalia.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981:

     Acts 19:6:

     And when Paul had laid [his] hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied.

   • 1830 August 3, Robertson, A., “ROW HERESY AND GARELOCH MIRACLES”, in The Kaleidoscope; or, Literary and Scientific Mirror‎, volume XI, number 527, Liverpool, ISSN 0075-4692, OCLC 1069382742, page 39, column 3:

     "These letters evince the degree of enthusiasm to which their writers, and others of the same persuasion, had attained, before their pretensions to the gift of tongues. Having adopted, by means of their spiritual instructors, extravagant views of the operation of the Holy Spirit, they were, in a peculiar sense, in the Spirit, and had the mind of Christ ; and, modelling the Scriptures on these topics to their favourite prepossessions, they came to the conclusion that they were enlightened to understand the mind of the Spirit in the Scriptures, as perfectly as the Apostles were inspired to write it! This prepared them for the next stage of delusion, namely, that the same power which enabled the Apostles to speak in tongues, was also in them, and that their thoughts and words were not their own, but the Spirit’s.

Related terms

• speaking in tongues
• tongues-speaker, tongue speaker
• tongues-speaking

Translations

speak in a language unknown to the speaker

Chinese: Mandarin: please add this translation if you can Danish: tale i tunger Finnish: puhua kielillä French: parler en langues (fr) German: in fremden Zungen sprechen, in Sprachen reden, in fremden Sprachen reden, Sprachenrede praktizieren, Zungenrede praktizieren, Zungenreden praktizieren, glossolalieren Norwegian: Bokmål: tale i tunger, glossolalere Nynorsk: tale i tunger, glossolalere Portuguese: falar em línguas Swedish: tala i tungor

Further reading

• “speak in tongues”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “speak in tongues, phrase”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• speak in tongues at OneLook Dictionary Search
• “speak in tongues”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
• “speak in tongues” in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2023.