different between tongue vs language

English

Alternative forms

• tounge (obsolete, now considered a misspelling); tung (obsolete or informal/eye dialect); tong, tonge, toong, toongue, toung, toungue, tunge (all obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English tonge, tunge, tung, from Old English tunge, from Proto-West Germanic *tung?, from Proto-Germanic *tung? (“tongue”) (compare West Frisian tonge, Dutch tong, German Zunge, Danish tunge, Norwegian Bokmål tunge, Swedish tunga), from Proto-Indo-European *dn???wéh?s.

See also Old Irish tengae, Latin lingua, Tocharian A käntu, Tocharian B kantwo, Lithuanian liežùvis, Russian ???? (jazyk), Polish j?zyk, Old Armenian ????? (lezu), Avestan ????????????????????????? (hizuu?), Ashkun ž?, Kamkata-viri di?, Sanskrit ?????? (jihv??). Doublet of langue and lingua.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, US, Canada) IPA^(key): /t??/
• (UK, Northern) IPA^(key): /t??/
• (UK, Manchester) IPA^(key): /t???/, /t???/
• Rhymes: -??

Noun

tongue (plural tongues)

1. 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.
   • c. 1515–1516, published 1568, John Skelton, Again?t venemous tongues enpoy?oned with ?claunder and fal?e detractions &c.:

     But lering and lurking here and there like ?pies,
     The devil tere their tunges and pike out their ies!

2. (countable, uncountable) This organ, as taken from animals used for food (especially cows).?
   • 1902, E. Nesbit, Five Children and It, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1905, Chapter 4, p. 136,^[1]

     However you eat them, tongue and chicken and new bread are very good things, and no one minds being sprinkled a little with soda-water on a really fine hot day.# 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.

3. (metonymically) A language.

   Synonyms: idiom, language, lingo (colloquial)

   He was speaking in his native tongue.

   • 1591, Edmund Spenser, “The Ruines of Time” in Complaints, containing sundrie small poemes of the worlds vanitie, London: William Ponsonbie,^[2]

     [...] that great Towre, which is so much renownd

     For tongues confusion in holie writ,

   • 1726, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, London: Benjamin Motte, Volume 1, Part 2, Chapter 2, p. 178,^[3]

     When I pointed to any thing, she told me the Name of it in her own Tongue, so that in a few Days I was able to call for whatever I had a mind to.

   • 1878, Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native, Book 1, Chapter 7,^[4]

     To dwell on a heath without studying its meanings was like wedding a foreigner without learning his tongue.

   • 1958, Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, New York: Knopf, 1992, Chapter 23, p. 166,^[5]

     Many of them come from distant places and although they speak your tongue they are ignorant of your customs.

   • 2002, Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex, New York: Picador, Book 2, p. 99,^[6]

     My grandfather, accustomed to the multifarious conjugations of ancient Greek verbs, had found English, for all its incoherence, a relatively simple tongue to master.

4. (obsolete) Speakers of a language, collectively.
   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Isaiah 66.18,^[7]

     I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.

5. (obsolete) Voice (the distinctive sound of a person's speech); accent (distinctive manner of pronouncing a language).
   • c. 1596, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act II, Scene 6,^[8]

     Who are you? Tell me, for more certainty,

     Albeit I’ll swear that I do know your tongue.

   • 1748, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Roderick Random, London: J. Osborn, Volume 1, Chapter 21, p. 173,^[9]

     [...] one of [the prisoners], whom by his tongue I knew to be a Scotchman, lamented most piteously [...]

6. Manner of speaking, often habitually.
   • c. 1515–1516, published 1568, John Skelton, Again?t venemous tongues enpoy?oned with ?claunder and fal?e detractions &c.:

     Al maters wel pondred and wel to be regarded,
     How ?huld a fals lying tung then be rewarded?

   • 1715, Daniel Defoe, The Family Instructor, London: Eman. Matthews, Volume 1, Part 2, Dialogue 2, p. 211,^[10]

     [...] his wicked way of Living, his prophane Tongue, and his Contempt of Religion, had made him not very well receiv’d [...]

   • 1935, Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night, London: New English Library, 1970, Chapter 8, p. 205,^[11]

     I’m afraid I’ve inherited my uncle’s tongue and my mother’s want of tact.

   • 1952, John Steinbeck, East of Eden, London: Heinemann, Part 1, Chapter 2, p. 8,^[12]

     Samuel had no equal for soothing hysteria and bringing quiet to a frightened child. It was the sweetness of his tongue and the tenderness of his soul.

   • 1972, Hortense Calisher, Herself, New York: Arbor House, Part 4, p. 369,^[13]

     [...] Frank Marcus’ Sister George, technically a quite ordinary comedy in the old style [...] was remarkable [...] for the frank tongue of its Lesbians [...]

7. (metonymically) A person speaking in a specified manner (most often plural).
   • 1860, George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Book 7, Chapter 3,^[14]

     I know that we must keep apart for a long while; cruel tongues would force us apart, if nothing else did.

   • 1936, Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Part 3, Chapter 30,^[15]

     [...] it was obvious to his listeners that Pittypat, in his mind, was still a plump and charming miss of sixteen who must be sheltered against evil tongues.

   • 2007, Ng?g? wa Thiong'o, Wizard of the Crow, New York: Knopf Doubleday, Book 4, p. 592,^[16]

     [...] the drunk, who had been a permanent fixture in that bar, changed location and thereafter moved from bar to bar, saying to inquisitive tongues, Too long a stay in one seat tires the buttocks.

8. The power of articulate utterance; speech generally.
   • 1717, John Dryden (translator), Ovid’s Metamorphoses in fifteen books, London: Jacob Tonson, “The Story of Pygmalion and the Statue,” p. 344,^[17]

     Parrots imitating Human Tongue

9. (obsolete) Discourse; fluency of speech or expression.
10. (obsolete, uncountable) Discourse; fluency of speech or expression.
    • c. 1597, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1, Act V, Scene 2,^[18]

      [...] fellows, soldiers, friends,

      Better consider what you have to do

      Than I, that have not well the gift of tongue,

      Can lift your blood up with persuasion.

    • 1692, Roger L’Estrange, Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists with Morals and Reflexions, London: R. Sare et al., ^[19]

      Much Tongue, and much Judgment seldom go together, for Talking and Thinking are Two Quite Differing Faculties,

    • 1876, George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, Chapter 31,^[20]

      “[...] this Mr. Grandcourt has wonderful little tongue. Everything must be done dummy-like without his ordering.”

      “Then he’s the more whip, I doubt,” said Mrs. Girdle. “She’s got tongue enough, I warrant her [...]”

11. (obsolete) Honourable discourse; eulogy.
    • 1621, Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, Thierry and Theodoret, Act V, in The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Edinburgh: James Ballantyne, 1812, Volume 12, p. 374,^[21]

      She was born noble; let that title find her

      A private grave, but neither tongue nor honour!

12. (religion, often in the plural) Glossolalia.

    Synonym: speaking in tongues

    • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13.8,^[22]

      Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

13. In a shoe, the flap of material that goes between the laces and the foot (so called because it resembles a tongue in the mouth).
    • 1990, J. M. Coetzee, Age of Iron, New York: Random House, Chapter 3, p. 96,^[23]

      I caught a glimpse of a brown boot, the tongue flapping, the sole tied on with string.

    • 2006, Sarah Waters, The Night Watch, London: Virago, Chapter 2, p. 53,^[24]

      [...] her low-heeled shoes had flat fringed tongues to them—the kind of shoes you expected to see on a golf-course, or a Scottish highland, somewhere expensively hearty like that.

14. Any large or long physical protrusion on an automotive or machine part or any other part that fits into a long groove on another part.
15. A projection, or slender appendage or fixture.

16. A long, narrow strip of land, projecting from the mainland into a sea or lake.
17. The pole of a vehicle; especially, the pole of an ox cart, to the end of which the oxen are yoked.
    • 1986, Hortense Calisher, The Bobby-Soxer, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, p. 91,^[25]

      Far to the right, where the main pile sloped out, his cart reared tongue upward, like a plow.

18. The clapper of a bell.
    • c. 1595, William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene 1,^[26]

      The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve:

    • 1940, Richard Wright, Native Son, London: Jonathan Cape, Book 2, p. 156,^[27]

      [...] the bell clanged so loud that he could hear the iron tongue clapping against the metal sides each time it swung to and fro [...]

19. (figuratively) An individual point of flame from a fire.
    • 1818, Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Revolt of Islam, London: C. and J. Ollier, Canto 3, stanza 13, p. 63,^[28]

      Then up a steep and dark and narrow stair

      We wound, until the torches’ fiery tongue

      Amid the gushing day beamless and pallid hung.
20. A small sole (type of fish).
21. (nautical) A short piece of rope spliced into the upper part of standing backstays, etc.; also, the upper main piece of a mast composed of several pieces.
22. (music) A reed.
23. (geology) A division of formation; A layer or member of a formation that pinches out in one direction.

Translations

See also

• ????

Verb

tongue (third-person singular simple present tongues, present participle tonguing, simple past and past participle tongued)

1. (music, transitive, intransitive) 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).

2. (slang) To manipulate with the tongue, as in kissing or oral sex.
3. To protrude in relatively long, narrow sections.

4. To join by means of a tongue and groove.

5. (intransitive, obsolete) To talk; to prate.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)

6. (transitive, obsolete) To speak; to utter.
   • c. 1609, William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, Act V, Scene 4,^[29]

     ’Tis still a dream, or else such stuff as madmen

     Tongue and brain not;

7. (transitive, obsolete) To chide; to scold.
   • c. 1604, William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act IV, Scene 4,^[30]

     How might she tongue me!

Derived terms

See also

• gloss-
• glossal
• lingual
• linguiform
• linguo-

References

• tongue on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• tounge

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: l?ng?gw?j, IPA^(key): /?læ??w?d??/
  • (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): (see /æ/ raising) [?le???w?d??]
• Hyphenation: lan?guage

Etymology 1

From Middle English langage, language, from Old French language, from Vulgar Latin *lingu?ticum, from Latin lingua (“tongue, speech, language”), from Old Latin dingua (“tongue”), from Proto-Indo-European *dn???wéh?s (“tongue, speech, language”). Displaced native Old English ?eþ?ode.

Noun

language (countable and uncountable, plural languages)

1. (countable) A body of words, and set of methods of combining them (called a grammar), understood by a community and used as a form of communication.
   • 1867, Report on the Systems of Deaf-Mute Instruction pursued in Europe, quoted in 1983 in History of the College for the Deaf, 1857-1907 ?ISBN, page 240:

     Hence the natural language of the mute is, in schools of this class, suppressed as soon and as far as possible, and its existence as a language, capable of being made the reliable and precise vehicle for the widest range of thought, is ignored.
2. (uncountable) The ability to communicate using words.

3. (uncountable) A sublanguage: the slang of a particular community or jargon of a particular specialist field.
   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, p. 35:

     And ‘blubbing’... Blubbing went out with ‘decent’ and ‘ripping’. Mind you, not a bad new language to start up. Nineteen-twenties schoolboy slang could be due for a revival.

4. (countable, uncountable, figuratively) The expression of thought (the communication of meaning) in a specified way; that which communicates something, as language does.
   • 2001, Eugene C. Kennedy, Sara C. Charles, On Becoming a Counselor ?ISBN:

     A tale about themselves [is] told by people with help from the universal languages of their eyes, their hands, and even their shirting feet.
5. (countable, uncountable) A body of sounds, signs and/or signals by which animals communicate, and by which plants are sometimes also thought to communicate.
   • 1983, The Listener, volume 110, page 14:

     A more likely hypothesis was that the attacked leaves were transmitting some airborne chemical signal to sound the alarm, rather like insects sending out warnings […] But this is the first time that a plant-to-plant language has been detected.

   • 2009, Animals in Translation, page 274:

     Prairie dogs use their language to refer to real dangers in the real world, so it definitely has meaning.

6. (computing, countable) A computer language; a machine language.
   • 2015, Kent D. Lee, Foundations of Programming Languages ?ISBN, page 94

     In fact pointers are called references in these languages to distinguish them from pointers in languages like C and C++.

7. (uncountable) Manner of expression.
   • 1782, William Cowper, Hope

     Their language simple, as their manners meek, […]

8. (uncountable) The particular words used in a speech or a passage of text.

9. (uncountable) Profanity.

Synonyms

• (form of communication): see Thesaurus:language
• (vocabulary of a particular field): see Thesaurus:jargon
• (computer language): computer language, programming language, machine language
• (particular words used): see Thesaurus:wording

Hypernyms

• medium

Hyponyms

• See Category:en:Languages

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Verb

language (third-person singular simple present languages, present participle languaging, simple past and past participle languaged)

1. (rare, now nonstandard or technical) To communicate by language; to express in language.

   • Others were languaged in such doubtful expressions that they have a double sense.

See also

• bilingual
• lexis
• linguistics
• multilingual
• term
• trilingual
• word

Etymology 2

Alteration of languet.

Noun

language (plural languages)

1. A languet, a flat plate in or below the flue pipe of an organ.

References

• language at OneLook Dictionary Search
• language in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• language in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

French

Noun

language m (plural languages)

1. Archaic spelling of langage.

Middle English

Noun

language (plural languages)

1. Alternative form of langage

Middle French

Alternative forms

• langage
• langaige
• languaige

Etymology

From Old French language.

Noun

language m (plural languages)

1. language (style of communicating)

Related terms

• langue

Descendants

• French: langage
  • Haitian Creole: langaj
    • ? English: langaj
  • Mauritian Creole: langaz

Old French

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Vulgar Latin *lingu?ticum, from Classical Latin lingua (“tongue, language”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lan??ad???/

Noun

language f (oblique plural languages, nominative singular language, nominative plural languages)

1. language (style of communicating)

Related terms

• langue, lingue

Descendants

• ? Middle English: language
  • English: language
• Middle French: language
  • French: langage
    • Haitian Creole: langaj
      • ? English: langaj
    • Mauritian Creole: langaz
• ? Old Spanish: lenguage