Emily Dickinson Lexicon

TONGUE, or TUNG, n. [Sax. tung, tunga; Goth. tuggo; Sw. tunga; Dan. tunge; D. tong; G. zunge; Ir. and Gaelic, teanga; Ant. L. tingua. We see by the Gothic, that n is not radical; the word belongs to Class Dg. It signifies a shoot or extension, like L. digitus and dug. Our common orthography is incorrect; the true spelling is tung.]

1. In man, one of the instruments of taste, and also one of the instruments of speech; and in other animals one of the instruments 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 genus, &c. Other animals lap their drink, as dogs. The tongue is covered with membranes, and the outer one is full of papillæ 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. Cyc.
2. Speech; discourse; sometimes, fluency of speech. Much tongue and much judgment seldom go together. L'Estrange.
3. The power of articulate utterance; speech. Parrots imitating human tongue. Dryden.
4. Speech, as well or ill used; mode of speaking. Keep a good tongue in thy head. Shak. The tongue of the wise is health. Prov. xii.
5. 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.
6. 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. 1 John iii.
7. A nation, as distinguished by their language. I will gather all nations and tongues. Is. lxvi.
8. A point; a projection; as, the tongue of a buckle or of a balance.
9. A point or long narrow strip of land, projecting from the main into a sea or a lake.
10. The taper part of any thing; in the rigging of a ship, a short piece of rope splised into the upper part of standing backstays, &c. to the size of the mast-head. To hold the tongue, to be silent. Addison.