Added 9 October 2026

tongue

/tʌŋ/ noun

In Latin: lingua Wiktionary

noun Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about tongue at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

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

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.
To manipulate with the tongue.
To lick, penetrate or manipulate with the tongue during flirting or oral sex.

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.