请输入您要查询的单词：

　

单词 tongue
释义

tongue

See also: Tongue

English

Alternative forms

  • tounge (obsolete, now considered a misspelling); tung (obsolete or informal/eye dialect); tong, tonge, toong, toongue, toung, toungue, tunge (all obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English tonge, tunge, tung, from Old English tunge, from Proto-West Germanic *tungā, from Proto-Germanic *tungǭ (“tongue”) (compare West Frisian tonge, Dutch tong, Luxembourgish Zong, Zazaki Zon, German Zunge, Yiddish צונג‎ (tsung), Danish tunge, Norwegian Bokmål tunge, Swedish tunga, Gothic 𐍄𐌿𐌲𐌲𐍉 (tuggō)), from Proto-Indo-European *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s.

See also Old Irish tengae, Latin lingua, Tocharian A käntu, Tocharian B kantwo, Lithuanian liežùvis, Russian язык (jazyk), Polish język, Old Armenian լեզու (lezu), Avestan 𐬵𐬌𐬰𐬎𐬎𐬁‎ (hizuuā), Ashkun žū, Kamkata-viri dić, Sanskrit जिह्वा (jihvā́). Doublet of langue and lingua.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation, US, Canada) IPA(key): /tʌŋ/
  • (UK, Northern) IPA(key): /tʊŋ/
  • (UK, Manchester, Liverpool) IPA(key): /tɒŋɡ/, /tʊŋɡ/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Audio (UK)(file)
  • Rhymes: -ʌŋ

Noun

tongue (plural tongues)

  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.
    Synonyms: glossa, lingua
    • c. 1515–1516, published 1568, John Skelton, Againſt venemous tongues enpoyſoned with ſclaunder and falſe detractions &c.:
      But lering and lurking here and there like ſpies,
      The devil tere their tunges and pike out their ies!
  2. (countable, uncountable) This organ, as taken from animals used for food (especially cows).
    cold tongue with mustard
    • 1902, E. Nesbit, Five Children and It, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1905, Chapter 4, p. 136,
      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. (metonymically) A language.
    Synonyms: idiom, language, lingo (colloquial)
    He was speaking in his native tongue.
    • 1591, Ed[mund] Sp[enser], “The Ruines of Time”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. […], London: […] William Ponsonbie, […], OCLC 15537294:
      […] that great Towre, which is so much renownd
      For tongues confusion in holie writ,
    • 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], OCLC 995220039, (please specify |part=I, II, III or IV), page [178]:
      When I pointed to any thing, she told me the Name of it in her own Tongue, so that in a few Days I was able to call for whatever I had a mind to.
    • 1878 January–December, Thomas Hardy, chapter 7, in The Return of the Native […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], published 1878, OCLC 1167534396:
      To dwell on a heath without studying its meanings was like wedding a foreigner without learning his tongue.
    • 1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter LXXXVI, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, OCLC 890513588:
      “You should read Spanish,” he said. “It is a noble tongue. […] ”
    • 1958, Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, New York: Knopf, 1992, Chapter 23, p. 166,
      Many of them come from distant places and although they speak your tongue they are ignorant of your customs.
    • 2002, Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex, New York: Picador, Book 2, p. 99,
      My grandfather, accustomed to the multifarious conjugations of ancient Greek verbs, had found English, for all its incoherence, a relatively simple tongue to master.
  5. (obsolete) Speakers of a language, collectively.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Isaiah 66:18:
      I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.
  6. (obsolete) Voice (the distinctive sound of a person's speech); accent (distinctive manner of pronouncing a language).
    • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act II, scene vi]:
      Who are you? Tell me, for more certainty,
      Albeit I’ll swear that I do know your tongue.
    • 1748, [Tobias Smollett], chapter 21, in The Adventures of Roderick Random. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), 2nd edition, London: […] J. Osborn […], OCLC 1181155068, page 173:
      [...] one of [the prisoners], whom by his tongue I knew to be a Scotchman, lamented most piteously [...]
  7. Manner of speaking, often habitually.
    • c. 1515–1516, published 1568, John Skelton, Againſt venemous tongues enpoyſoned with ſclaunder and falſe detractions &c.:
      Al maters wel pondred and wel to be regarded,
      How ſhuld a fals lying tung then be rewarded?
    • 1715, Daniel Defoe, The Family Instructor, London: Eman. Matthews, Volume 1, Part 2, Dialogue 2, p. 211,
      [...] his wicked way of Living, his prophane Tongue, and his Contempt of Religion, had made him not very well receiv’d [...]
    • 1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Death of the Red Fox”, in Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, Limited., published 1886, OCLC 1056292939, page 162:
      "Well," said he, at last, "your tongue is bold; but I am no unfriend to plainness [...]"
    • 1935, Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night, London: New English Library, 1970, Chapter 8, p. 205,
      I’m afraid I’ve inherited my uncle’s tongue and my mother’s want of tact.
    • 1952, John Steinbeck, East of Eden, London: Heinemann, Part 1, Chapter 2, p. 8,
      Samuel had no equal for soothing hysteria and bringing quiet to a frightened child. It was the sweetness of his tongue and the tenderness of his soul.
    • 1972, Hortense Calisher, Herself, New York: Arbor House, Part 4, p. 369,
      [...] Frank Marcus’ Sister George, technically a quite ordinary comedy in the old style [...] was remarkable [...] for the frank tongue of its Lesbians [...]
  8. (metonymically) A person speaking in a specified manner (most often plural).
    • 1860, George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Book 7, Chapter 3,
      I know that we must keep apart for a long while; cruel tongues would force us apart, if nothing else did.
    • 1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, chapter 30, in Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, OCLC 1049770437; republished New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, 1944, OCLC 20350211:
      […] it was obvious to his listeners that Pittypat, in his mind, was still a plump and charming miss of sixteen who must be sheltered against evil tongues.
    • 2007, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Wizard of the Crow, New York: Knopf Doubleday, Book 4, p. 592,
      [...] the drunk, who had been a permanent fixture in that bar, changed location and thereafter moved from bar to bar, saying to inquisitive tongues, Too long a stay in one seat tires the buttocks.
  9. The power of articulate utterance; speech generally.
    • 1717, John Dryden (translator), Ovid’s Metamorphoses in fifteen books, London: Jacob Tonson, “The Story of Pygmalion and the Statue,” p. 344,
      Parrots imitating Human Tongue
  10. (obsolete) Discourse; fluency of speech or expression.
  11. (obsolete, uncountable) Discourse; fluency of speech or expression.
    • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act V, scene ii]:
      [...] fellows, soldiers, friends,
      Better consider what you have to do
      Than I, that have not well the gift of tongue,
      Can lift your blood up with persuasion.
    • 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], OCLC 228727523:
      Much Tongue, and much Judgment seldom go together, for Talking and Thinking are Two Quite Differing Faculties,
    • 1876, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XXXI, in Daniel Deronda, volume II, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, OCLC 775411, book IV (Gwendolen Gets Her Choice), page 275:
      “[...] this Mr. Grandcourt has wonderful little tongue. Everything must be done dummy-like without his ordering.”
      “Then he’s the more whip, I doubt,” said Mrs. Girdle. “She’s got tongue enough, I warrant her [...]”
  12. (obsolete) Honourable discourse; eulogy.
    • c. 1607–1621, Francis Beaumont; John Fletcher; Philip Massinger, “The Tragedy of Thierry and Theodoret”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1679, OCLC 3083972, Act V, (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
      She was born noble; let that title find her
      A private grave, but neither tongue nor honour!
  13. (religion, often in the plural) Glossolalia.
    Synonym: speaking in tongues
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, 1 Corinthians 13:8:
      Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
  14. In a shoe, the flap of material that goes between the laces and the foot (so called because it resembles a tongue in the mouth).
    • 1990, J. M. Coetzee, Age of Iron, New York: Random House, Chapter 3, p. 96,
      I caught a glimpse of a brown boot, the tongue flapping, the sole tied on with string.
    • 2006, Sarah Waters, The Night Watch, London: Virago, Chapter 2, p. 53,
      [...] her low-heeled shoes had flat fringed tongues to them—the kind of shoes you expected to see on a golf-course, or a Scottish highland, somewhere expensively hearty like that.
  15. Any large or long physical protrusion on an automotive or machine part or any other part that fits into a long groove on another part.
  16. A projection, or slender appendage or fixture.
    the tongue of a buckle, or of a balance
  17. A long, narrow strip of land, projecting from the mainland into a sea or lake.
    • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, Chapter 12:
      On one side was a coral reef; on the other a low tongue of land, covered with mangrove thickets that grew out into the water.
  18. The pole of a vehicle; especially, the pole of an ox cart, to the end of which the oxen are yoked.
    • 1986, Hortense Calisher, The Bobby-Soxer, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, p. 91,
      Far to the right, where the main pile sloped out, his cart reared tongue upward, like a plow.
  19. The clapper of a bell.
    • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act V, scene i]:
      The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve:
    • 1940, Richard Wright, Native Son, London: Jonathan Cape, Book 2, p. 156,
      [...] the bell clanged so loud that he could hear the iron tongue clapping against the metal sides each time it swung to and fro [...]
  20. (figuratively) An individual point of flame from a fire.
    • 1818, Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Revolt of Islam, London: C. and J. Ollier, Canto 3, stanza 13, p. 63,
      Then up a steep and dark and narrow stair
      We wound, until the torches’ fiery tongue
      Amid the gushing day beamless and pallid hung.
    • 1895, H. G. Wells, chapter XI, in The Time Machine:
      Now, in this decadent age the art of fire-making had been altogether forgotten on the earth. The red tongues that went licking up my heap of wood were an altogether new and strange thing to Weena.
  21. A small sole (type of fish).
  22. (nautical) 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.
  23. (music) A reed.
  24. (geology) A division of formation; A layer or member of a formation that pinches out in one direction.

Descendants

  • Bislama: tang
  • Kriol: tang
  • Sranan Tongo: tongo
  • Tok Pisin: tang
  • Torres Strait Creole: tang

Translations

language — see language
obsolete: voice — See also translations at voice
obsolete: honourable discourse — See also translations at eulogy
religion: glossolalia — see speaking in tongues
music: reed — see reed

See also

  • 👅

Verb

tongue (third-person singular simple present tongues, present participle tonguing, simple past and past participle tongued)

  1. (music, transitive, intransitive) 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.
  2. (slang) To manipulate with the tongue, as in kissing or oral sex.
  3. To protrude in relatively long, narrow sections.
    a soil horizon that tongues into clay
  4. To join by means of a tongue and groove.
    to tongue boards together
  5. (intransitive, obsolete) To talk; to prate.
  6. (transitive, obsolete) To speak; to utter.
    • 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act V, scene iv]:
      ’Tis still a dream, or else such stuff as madmen
      Tongue and brain not;
  7. (transitive, obsolete) To chide; to scold.
    • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act IV, scene iv]:
      How might she tongue me!

Derived terms

Terms derived from the noun or verb tongue
  • acid-tongued
  • adder's tongue
  • beardtongue
  • beef tongue
  • betongue
  • bird's-tongue
  • bite one's tongue
  • blabtongue
  • bluetongue
  • blue-tongued skink
  • blue-tongue lizard
  • bonytongue
  • bridle one's tongue
  • cat got someone's tongue
  • cat tongue, cat's tongue
  • civil tongue
  • click one's tongue
  • cluck one's tongue
  • deer's tongue
  • disc-tongued frog
  • dog's tongue
  • double-tongued
  • double-tonguing
  • earth tongue
  • father tongue
  • find one's tongue
  • flamingo tongue
  • foreign tongue
  • forked tongue
  • geographic tongue
  • gift of tongues
  • give tongue
  • goosetongue
  • guard one's tongue
  • hart's tongue
  • have something on the tip of one's tongue
  • hold one's tongue
  • honey-tongued
  • hound's tongue
  • ice tongue
  • intertongue
  • keep a civil tongue in one's head
  • keep a quiet tongue
  • law of the tongue
  • lay one's tongue to
  • long-tongued
  • loosen someone's tongue
  • milk tongue
  • mother-in-law's tongue
  • mother tongue
  • native tongue
  • on one's tongue
  • on the tip of one's tongue
  • outtongue
  • oxtongue
  • put one's tongue out
  • retracted tongue root
  • roll off the tongue
  • root of the tongue
  • sharp tongue
  • sharp-tongued
  • silver tongue
  • silver-tongued
  • slip of the tongue
  • smooth-tongued
  • speaking in tongues
  • speak in tongues
  • speak with a forked tongue
  • stick one's tongue out
  • the rough side of one's tongue
  • the tongue of scandal
  • the tongue wounds more than a lance
  • thick tongue
  • thick-tongued
  • tonguage
  • tongue and groove
  • tongue bath
  • tongue bone
  • tongue-boring
  • tongue clacker
  • tongue clacking
  • tongue depressor
  • tonguedness
  • tonguedom
  • tonguefish
  • tonguefuck
  • tongue-in-cheek
  • tongue-in-chic
  • tonguejob
  • tongue kiss
  • tongue-lash
  • tongue lashing
  • tongueless
  • tonguelet
  • tonguelike
  • tongue-lolling bit
  • tonguely
  • tongueman
  • tongue map
  • tongueness
  • tongue-pad
  • tongue punch
  • tongue ring
  • tongue run away with one
  • tongue sandwich, tongue sarnie
  • tongue-shaped
  • tongue-shell
  • tongueship
  • tongue sole
  • tonguesore
  • tongues-speaker
  • tonguester
  • tongue stone
  • tongue thrust
  • tongue-tie
  • tongue-tied
  • tongue toast
  • tongue twister
  • tonguework
  • tongueworm
  • tonguey
  • tonguing
  • twi-tongued
  • two-tongued
  • untongue
  • vaper's tongue
  • venomous-tongued
  • wag one's tongue
  • watch one's tongue
  • whet one's tongue
  • wicked tongue
  • woman's tongue tree

See also

  • gloss-
  • glossal
  • lingual
  • linguiform
  • linguo-

References

  • tongue on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

  • tounge
随便看

　

国际大辞典收录了7408809条英语、德语、日语等多语种在线翻译词条，基本涵盖了全部常用单词及词组的翻译及用法，是外语学习的有利工具。

　

Copyright © 2004-2023 idict.net All Rights Reserved
京ICP备2021023879号 更新时间：2024/7/12 1:05:56