Speakur

Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

tongue

/tʌŋ/

Word Rarity Uncommon

Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.37 in modern English

Syllables
tongue
IPA
/tʌŋ/
7
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

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.

Countable; Uncountable

noun

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

Countable; Uncountable

noun

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.

Countable; Uncountable

noun

A language.

Countable; Uncountable

noun

The speakers of a language, collectively.

Countable; Obsolete; Uncountable

noun

A voice, (the distinctive sound of a person's speech); accent (distinctive manner of pronouncing a language).

Countable; Obsolete; Uncountable

noun

A manner of speaking, often habitually.

Countable; Uncountable

noun

A person speaking in a specified manner.

Countable; Uncountable

Example Sentences

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”). Doublet of langue and lingua. Cognates Germanic: West Frisian tonge, Dutch tong, Luxembourgish Zong, German Zunge, Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk tunge, Faroese, Icelandic, and Swedish tunga, Gothic 𐍄𐌿𐌲𐌲𐍉 (tuggō). Italic: Asturian and Catalan llengua, Aragonese luenga, French langue, Galician, Italian, and Latin lingua, Leonese llingua, Mirandese lhéngua, Portuguese língua, Spanish lengua. Celtic: Irish teanga. Slavic: Belarusian and Russian язык (jazyk), Bulgarian ези́к (ezík), Czech and Slovak jazyk, Macedonian јазик (jazik), Polish język, Serbo-Croatian jèzik (“tongue”), Slovene jézik, Ukrainian язи́к (jazýk). Indo-Iranic: Persian زبان (zabân), Sanskrit जि॒ह्वा (jihvā́). The expected modern spelling, both phonetically and etymologically, would be tung. Using ⟨on⟩ for ⟨un⟩ was fairly common in Middle English; compare e.g. yong (“young”). The final ⟨gue⟩ arose to prevent tonge being misread with a soft /dʒ/. However, this spelling only became common at a time when the final ⟨e⟩ was already largely silent, so it is not clear why it was not simply dropped instead. Perhaps the spelling was influenced directly by French langue (“tongue”).

Origin

Word Breakdown

  • Root: tongue, tunge, *tungā, *tungǭ, *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s

Regional Pronunciation

  • American English: /tʌŋ/
  • British English: /tʌŋ/

Usage

Subject

Wiktionary places this term in Law.

Inflected Forms

tongues (plural) tong (alternative, obsolete) tonge (alternative, obsolete) toong (alternative, obsolete) toongue (alternative, obsolete) toung (alternative, obsolete) tounge (alternative, obsolete) toungue (alternative, obsolete) tung (alternative, obsolete) tunge (alternative, obsolete) tongues (present, singular) tonguing (participle, present)

Derived Forms

beardtongue betongue birthtongue blabtongue bluetongue bonytongue goosetongue hartstongue houndstongue intertongue outtongue oxtongue

Phrases

acid-tongued adder's tongue adder's-tongue advanced tongue root anti-tongues beef tongue bird's-tongue birth tongue

Frequently Paired Words

👅 gloss- glossal lingual linguiform linguo-

Synonyms

glossa lingua idiom language lingo mouth speaking in tongues clapper

Homonyms

tong (northern form with /ɒ/)

Rhymes With

young among hung lung sung kung swung chung sprung flung strung stung

Questions

How do you pronounce tongue?
The recorded pronunciation is /tʌŋ/.
What does tongue mean?
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.
Where does tongue come from?
It is traced to Middle English.

How to pronounce tongue

  1. Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “tongue”.
  2. Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling (/tʌŋ/) so you know which sounds to aim for.
  3. Play the audio — Click Play to hear reference audio for “tongue”.
  4. Repeat and practice — Say “tongue” aloud, matching stress and vowels until it feels natural.