as in mute
unable to speak because you are nervous or shy
She became tongue-tied whenever he was around. He gets tongue-tied in front of crowds.
Related Words
Relevance
Dissimilar Words
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tongue-tied
Adjective
-
The only person who knows Diego’s secret is Bernardo (Salvatore Ficarra), his mute manservant.
-
Prior to being cast as Aang, Cormier received acclaim for his performance as mute child Joe in the TV miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand in 2020.
Adjective
-
His friends, from brother Luigi (Charlie Day) to Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) veer in a similar direction, somehow coming across less fully formed and three-dimensional than their nearly speechless inspirations from Nintendo‘s flagship franchise.
-
In helicopter video taken by Air Maui Helicopter Tours in Lahaina and posted online the people aboard are largely speechless.
Adjective
-
There have been times when acts of atrocity have been going on — and gosh, some of those things are incomprehensible — yet humanity has found a way.
-
Being joyful there — in the Dominican Republic, where small shacks and houses pieced together by junkyard scraps sometimes hold families with over a dozen members — seems incomprehensible.
Adjective
-
Simpson, butched up and closed off and vibrating with inarticulate pain, is superb in the part, and Jimenez’s rigid shoulders and frozen face are wrenching.
-
Yet masculinism also functions as a perpetual-motion machine of grievance, an inarticulate howl of anguish at the status quo—whatever that currently is.
Adjective
-
Writing was a corrective to my reality, which felt incoherent.
-
However, his second wife, Alicent Hightower (played as a young girl by Emily Carey and as an adult by Olivia Cooke), interprets his incoherent dying words as a change of heart in favor of her son, Aegon II Targaryen (played as a child by Ty Tennant and as an adult by Tom Glynn-Carney).
Adjective
-
And when Cape Verde’s Deroy Duarte evened the score with a right footed shot from a difficult angle at the 59-minute mark, the stunned stadium went silent, minus two small spirited clots of Cape Verde fans in the East end zone seats.
-
The flags are saved for periodic retirement ceremonies that involve reciting a script, standing at attention, a moment of silent reflection, and the subsequent burning.
Cite this Entry
“Tongue-tied.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tongue-tied. Accessed 6 Jul. 2026.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
