Tuesday, February 11, 2003
 
tongue, n.

I. The bodily member.

1. a. An organ, possessed by man and by most vertebrates, occupying the floor of the mouth, and attached at its base to the hyoid bone; often protrusible and freely movable. In its development in man and the higher mammals, it is tapering, blunt-tipped, muscular, soft and fleshy, important in taking in and swallowing food, also as the principal organ of taste, and in man of articulate speech.
In some mammals, as the ant-eaters, it is attenuated, long, and worm-like; in most birds it is pointed, hard, and horny; in fishes, hard and immovable; in snakes and many lizards, cylindrical, slender, and forked, and an important tactile organ; in some amphibia, it is fixed at the front and free at the hinder end, and (as also in chameleons) used in licking up their prey.

b. In reference to invertebrate animals, applied to various organs or parts of the mouth having some of the functions of the tongue of vertebrates, or some analogy to it.

c. Erroneously regarded as the ‘stinging organ’.

2. A figure or representation of this organ. a. A symbolic figure or appearance as of a tongue, as those that appeared on the day of Pentecost.

b. A delineated or artificial figure of a tongue.

3. The tongue of an animal as an article of food; esp. an OX-TONGUE or NEAT'S TONGUE.

II. In reference to speech.

4. a. Considered as the principal organ of speech; hence, the faculty of speech; the power of articulation or vocal expression or description; voice, speech; words, language. Also fig.
In many contexts it is impossible to separate the sense of the organ from that of its work or use.

b. In many colloquial and proverbial expressions of obvious meaning.

c. to hold one's tongue, to refrain from speech, keep silence, say nothing. to keep one's tongue, (a) to keep one's word; (b) to hold one's tongue.

d. Phr. to put, or speak with, one's tongue in one's cheek, to speak insincerely. Also in phr. to stick (or thrust) one's tongue in one's cheek, as a gesture of sly or contemptuous humour; hence with (one's) tongue in (one's) cheek, with sly irony or humorous insincerity. Cf. TONGUE-IN-CHEEK a. and adv.

e. with (one's) tongue hanging out and varr., with great thirst or (fig.) eager expectation. colloq.

5. a. The action of speaking; speech, talking, utterance, voice; also, what is spoken or uttered; words, talk, discourse.

b. Speech as distinguished from or contrasted with thought, action, or fact; mere words.

c. Spoken as distinct from written or other communication; by tongue, by word of mouth. Obs.

d. A ‘voice’, vote, suffrage. Obs. rare.

e. Eulogy, fame. Obs. rare.

6. Manner of speaking or talking, with regard to the sense or import of what is said, the mode of expression or form of words used, or the sound of the voice.

7. Of a dog. a. In phrases: to move (its) tongue, to bark (arch.); to give tongue, to throw (its) tongue, properly of a hound: to give forth its voice when on the scent or in sight of the quarry. Also transf. of persons.

b. Hence, the hunting-cry or ‘music’ of a hound in pursuit of game.

8. a. The speech or language of a people or race; also, that of a particular class or locality, a dialect.

b. the tongues , foreign languages; often spec. the classical or learned languages; the three tongues, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.

c. The knowledge or use of a language. Esp. in phrases gift of tongues, to speak with a tongue (tongues), in reference to the Pentecostal miracle and the miraculous gift in the early Church; also simply tongues (pl. in collect. sense).

9. transf. in biblical use: A people or nation having a language of their own. Usually in plural: all tongues, people of every tongue.

III. Anything that resembles or suggests the human or animal tongue by its shape, position, function, or use; a tapering, projecting, or elongated object or part, esp. when mobile, or attached at one end or side.

10. Any tongue-like part or organ of the human or animal body. tongue of the throat, the uvula.

11. A wedge, an ingot of gold or silver. Obs.
(In quot. a lit. rendering of Heb. l´shn zahab.)

12. (= tongue-fish.) A young or small-sized sole.
[So, in same sense, early mod.Du. tonghe (Kilian), Ger. zunge, Da. tunge, Sw. tungfisk.]

13. A tongue-like projecting piece of anything. a. A narrow strip of land, running into the sea, or between two branches of a river, or two other lands; also a projecting horizontal point or spit of ice in the sea, a narrow inlet of water running into the land, etc. b. A narrow and deep part of the current of a river, running smoothly and rapidly between rocks. c. A tapering jet of flame. d. Geol. A part of a formation that projects laterally into the material of an adjacent formation, becoming thinner in the direction of its length. e. gen.