tongue
/tʌŋ/noun, verb
tongue is spelled T-O-N-G-U-E. The wrong spelling people search most is tounge: about 2,110 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 2 in 10 of all searches for the word. Tongue is a noun meaning “The flexible muscular organ in the mouth that is used to move food around, for tasting and that is moved into…”. The plural of tongue is tongues.
How many letters and syllables are in tongue?
| Letters | 6: T-O-N-G-U-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 23 times per million words; the 3,814th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, tounge, about 2,110 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Pairs people search | |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell tongue?
Tongue is spelled T-O-N-G-U-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 2 in 10 of the searches for tongue in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is tongue?
Tongue appears 23 times per million words in written English, the 3,814th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce tongue?
- US /tʌŋ/
- /tʊŋɡ/
- /tɒŋɡ/
Tongue has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-tongue.ogg, En-us-tongue.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with tongue
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with tongue?
6 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as tongue from its last stressed vowel (/ʌŋ/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of tongue
- tongues plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- tonguing participle, present
- tongued participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does tongue mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 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.
But lering and lurking here and there like ſpies,
- 2
Such an organ, as taken from animals and used for food (especially from cows).
cold tongue with mustard
- 3
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.
- 4
A language.
He was speaking in his native tongue.
- 5
obsoleteThe speakers of a language, collectively.
- 6
obsoleteA voice, (the distinctive sound of a person's speech); accent (distinctive manner of pronouncing a language).
- 7
A manner of speaking, often habitually.
She can have a sharp tongue when she's annoyed.
- 8
A person speaking in a specified manner.
verb
- 1
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).
Playing wind instruments involves tonguing on the reed or mouthpiece.
- 2
To manipulate with the tongue.
- 3
slangvulgarTo lick, penetrate or manipulate with the tongue during flirting or oral sex.
- 4
To protrude in relatively long, narrow sections.
a soil horizon that tongues into clay
- 5
To join by means of a tongue and groove.
to tongue boards together
- 6
obsoleteTo talk; to prate.
- 7
obsoleteTo speak; to utter.
- 8
obsoleteTo chide; to scold.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Tongue in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | langue , languette , timon |
| German | Zunge , Lasche |
| Portuguese | língua |
| Spanish | lengua, argüendero , lengüeta , timón |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does tongue come from?
From Middle English tongue, a late spelling of tong(e), tung(e), from Old English tunge, from Proto-West Germanic *tungā (“tongue”), from Proto-Germanic *tungǭ (“tongue”), from Proto-Indo-European *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s (“tongue”). Doublet of langue and lingua.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).