In man, the instrument of taste, and the chief instrument of speech; and in other animals, the instrument of taste. It is also an instrument of deglutition. In some animals, the tongue is used for drawing the food into the mouth, as in animals of the bovine genusOther animals lap their drink, as dogs. The tongue is covered with membranes, and the outer one is full of papillae of a pyramidical figure, under which lies a thin, soft, reticular coat perforated with innumerable holes, and always lined with a thick and white or yellowish mucus.

Speech; discourse; sometimes, fluency of speech. Much tongue and much judgment seldom go together.

The power of articulate utterance; speech. Parrots imitating human tongue.

Speech, as well or ill used; mode of speaking. Keep a good tongue in thy head. The tongue of the wise is health. Proverbs 12:18.

A language; the whole sum of words used by a particular nation. The English tongue, within two hundred years, will probably be spoken by two or three hundred millions of people in North America.

Speech; words or declarations only; opposed to thoughts or actions. Let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. John 3:18.

Anation, as distinguished by their language. I will gather all nations and tongues. Isaiah 66:18.

A point; a projection; as the tongue of a buckle or of a balance.

A point or long narrow strip of land, projecting from the main into a sea or a lake.

The taper part of any thing; in the rigging of a ship, a short piece of rope spliced into the upper part of standing backstaysto the size of the mast-head. To hold the tongue, to be silent.

To chide; to scold. How might she tongue me.

To talk; to prate.

A name given by the Indians to a small insect, called by the Spaniards pique, which inserts its eggs within the human skin; an insect very troublesome in the East and West Indies.

In man, the instrument of taste, and the chief instrument of speech.