speak in tongues
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.44 in modern English
21
Scrabble Score
14
Letters
2
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To speak in a language unknown to the speaker, especially when in a state of religious ecstasy; glossolalia.
Archaic
Example Sentences
- "And when Paul had laid [his] hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied."
- ""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."
Etymology
Calque of Ancient Greek ἐλάλουν τε γλώσσαις (eláloun te glṓssais)