Which to use
“tongue” is a noun and “tongued” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #3,853
- “tongue” frequency rank
- #45,127
- “tongued” frequency rank
- 48980
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | tongue | tongued |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | 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. | Resembling a tongue. |
Where the spellings diverge
Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set tongue and tongued apart are highlighted. They share 6 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
tongue and tongued form a confusable pair in the English index, two distinct headwords that are easily confused because they look alike, sound alike, or both. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “tongue” sits inside “tongued” - close enough that the eye skips over the difference, far enough that meaning fully diverges. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48980, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
tongue is recorded at frequency rank #3,853, classified as anoun, pronounced /tʌŋ/. tongued is at rank #45,127, tagged as anadj, pronounced /tʌŋd/.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 48980, this pair ranks #187,993 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Frequency comparison
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "tongue" and "tongued" be used interchangeably?
Remembering tongue vs tongued
The fastest way to pick the right one every time.
- Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “tongue”; for an adjective, it's “tongued”.
- See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “tongue” entry
- Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable