tongue

1. 1.

   a mobile mass of muscular tissue covered with mucous membrane and located in the oral cavity

   Synonymslinguaglossaclapper

   Broaderorganarticulator

   Part ofmouththroat

   Partstastebud
2. 2.

   a human written or spoken language used by a community; opposed to e.g. a computer language

   Synonymsnatural language

   Broaderlanguage

   Narrowermother tonguetone languagecreoleAmerindEskimo-AleutChukchiSino-TibetanAustro-AsiaticHmongAustronesian
3. 3.

   any long thin projection that is transient

   “tongues of flame licked at the walls”

   “rifles exploded quick knives of fire into the dark”

   Synonymsknife

   Broaderprojection
4. 4.

   a manner of speaking

   “he spoke with a thick tongue”

   “she has a glib tongue”

   Broadermanner of speaking

   Narrowersharp tongue
5. 5.

   a narrow strip of land that juts out into the sea

   Synonymsspit

   Broadercape
6. 6.

   the tongue of certain animals used as meat

   Broadervariety meat

   Narrowerbeef tonguecalf's tongue
7. 7.

   the flap of material under the laces of a shoe or boot

   Broaderflap

   Part ofbootshoe
8. 8.

   metal striker that hangs inside a bell and makes a sound by hitting the side

   Synonymsclapper

   Broaderstriker

   Part ofbell

1. 1.

   articulate by tonguing, as when playing wind instruments

   Broaderplay

   Narrowerdouble tongue

   music

2. 2.

   lick or explore with the tongue

   Broaderlick

Other forms of tongue

plural

tongues·

past tense

tongued·

present participle

tonguing·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about tongue

What does tongue mean?

tongue means "a mobile mass of muscular tissue covered with mucous membrane and located in the oral cavity". That is the primary sense; the word has 10 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in tongue?

tongue has 1 syllable: tongue. In IPA it is /ˈtʌŋ/.

What is another word for tongue?

Close synonyms include lingua, glossa, clapper, natural language, knife. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is tongue a common word?

tongue is banded "Core" — among the few thousand words that carry most english. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with tongue?

1 word rhymes with tongue. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.