tongue
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "tongue", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "tongue" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "tongue" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
tongue is aEnglishnoun. It means: 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 differen... Pronounced /tʌŋ/. It ranks #3,853 in English word frequency. Often confused with tonne and torque.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tongue |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /tʌŋ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #3,853 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 13 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for tongue is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /tʌŋ/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,853 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 25 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for tongue, with forms such as "otngue", "tnogue", and "tognue". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 13 confusable-pair relationships, "tonne", "torque", "tongues", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English tongue, a late spelling of tong(e), tung(e), from Old English tunge, from Proto-West Germanic *tungā, from Proto-Germanic *tungǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s (“tongue”). Doublet of language and lingua. Cognates include Dutch ton… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is tongue, spelled T-O-N-G-U-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The 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.
- 2Such an organ, as taken from animals and used for food (especially from cows).
- 3Any 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.
- 4A language.
- 5The speakers of a language, collectively.
- 6A voice, (the distinctive sound of a person's speech); accent (distinctive manner of pronouncing a language).
- 7A manner of speaking, often habitually.
- 8A person speaking in a specified manner.
- 9The power of articulate utterance; speech generally.
- 10Discourse; the fluency of speech or expression.
- 11Discourse; fluency of speech or expression.
- 12Honorable discourse; eulogy.
- 13Glossolalia.
- 14In a shoe, the flap of material that goes between the laces and the foot (so called because it resembles a tongue in the mouth).
- 15Any large or long physical protrusion on an automotive or machine part or any other part that fits into a long groove on another part.
- 16A projection, or slender appendage or fixture.
- 17A long, narrow strip of land, projecting from the mainland into a sea or lake.
- 18The pole of a towed or drawn vehicle or farm implement (e.g., trailer, cart, plow, harrow), by which it is pulled; for example, the pole of an ox cart, to the end of which the oxen are yoked.
- 19The clapper of a bell.
- 20An individual point of flame from a fire.
- 21A small sole (type of fish).
- 22A 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.
- 23A reed.
- 24A division of formation; A layer or member of a formation that pinches out in one direction.
- 25The middle protrusion of a triple-tailed flag.
Etymology
From Middle English tongue, a late spelling of tong(e), tung(e), from Old English tunge, from Proto-West Germanic *tungā, from Proto-Germanic *tungǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s (“tongue”). Doublet of language and lingua. Cognates include Dutch tong, German Zunge, Swedish tunga, Gothic 𐍄𐌿𐌲𐌲𐍉 (tuggō), and further Irish teanga, Latin lingua, Russian язык (jazyk), Persian زبان (zabân), etc. See the Indo-European entry for more. The expected modern spelling, both phonetically and etymologically, would be tung. Using ⟨on⟩ for ⟨un⟩ was fairly common in Middle English, compare e.g. yong (“young”). The final ⟨gue⟩ arose to prevent tonge being misread with a soft /dʒ/. However, this spelling only became common at a time when the final ⟨e⟩ was already largely silent, so it is not clear why it was not simply dropped instead. Perhaps the spelling was influenced directly by French langue (“tongue”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: otngue,tnogue,tognue,tongeu,tonggue,tonngue,tonuge,ttongue
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for tongue
Misspelling Variants of "tongue"
Frequency rank: #3,853 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter T in our English index: