as in language
the stock of words, pronunciation, and grammar used by a people as their basic means of communication
he spoke in a tongue that I didn't understand
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Recent Examples of tongue
The only teams who started in a similar fashion played in the 1800s when bats were made with wagon tongue wood and fans arrived by horse and buggy.
—
Troy Renck, Denver Post, 21 May 2025
My name rolled off his tongue like it was meant to be said, temporarily stopping my panic.
—Michael Nied, People.com, 16 May 2025
The taste, a pink electrocution of the tongue, was indescribable—and there was a version that was more so?
—Patricia Lockwood, New Yorker, 18 May 2025
As bats were swinging, tongues were wagging about Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred’s ruling that bans by the MLB end at death.
—Kelly Phillips Erb, Forbes.com, 17 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for tongue
Troy Renck, Denver Post, 21 May 2025
My name rolled off his tongue like it was meant to be said, temporarily stopping my panic.
—Michael Nied, People.com, 16 May 2025
The taste, a pink electrocution of the tongue, was indescribable—and there was a version that was more so?
—Patricia Lockwood, New Yorker, 18 May 2025
As bats were swinging, tongues were wagging about Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred’s ruling that bans by the MLB end at death.
—Kelly Phillips Erb, Forbes.com, 17 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for tongue
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tongue
Noun
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The government's 2011 population census found that a little more than 10% of Indians fluently speak the language.—
Omkar Khandekar,
NPR,
8 June 2025
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Photosynthesis was such a profound development; so were eukaryotes, nervous systems and language.—
Philip Ball,
Wired News,
8 June 2025
Noun
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Of note is the incorporation of vocabulary from Ivan’s archaic Norm language, a special touch that entranced me.—
The Know,
Denver Post,
1 June 2025
-
Zimbabwe and South Africa share in Rhodes a common ancestor; in Ndebele a language with a close connection to Zulu (the most spoken language in South Africa); and the common visual vocabulary sometimes called Ndebele art.—
Percy Zvomuya,
Artforum,
1 June 2025
Noun
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There’s no universal language—only tribal dialects.—
Shekar Natarajan,
Forbes.com,
29 May 2025
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Because the characters are speaking a very distinctive local dialect, and that’s, of course, completely lost in translation.—
Georg Szalai,
HollywoodReporter,
28 May 2025
Noun
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Unleashing Wood has ushered in an exciting new phase for a widely influential band that has defined a state-of-the-art jazz idiom deeply engaged with other genres.—
Andrew Gilbert,
Mercury News,
23 May 2025
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Scientists analyzed recordings of three groups of chimpanzees living in the Ivory Coast and found that chimps can combine their hoots, grunts and calls in a similar way to how humans use idioms or change the order of words to build new phrases.—
Evan Bush,
NBC news,
11 May 2025
Video
An Abbreviated History of American English Spelling
Soop, wimmen, and headake did not make the cut
Cite this Entry
“Tongue.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tongue. Accessed 12 Jun. 2025.
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