Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A tongue or tonguelike organ.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The tongue; a tongue.
  • noun A language.
  • noun Hence— Any hybrid tongue used similarly in other parts of the world; an international dialect.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A tongue.
  • noun A median process of the labium, at the under side of the mouth in insects, and serving as a tongue.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun zoology A tongue.
  • noun zoology A median process of the labium, at the underside of the mouth in insects, and serving as a tongue.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a mobile mass of muscular tissue covered with mucous membrane and located in the oral cavity

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin, tongue, language; see dn̥ghū- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin, the tongue.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word lingua.

Examples

  • The Italian medieval poet Dante was the first to have recorded the term lingua d'oc.

    When "yes" and "no" become complex mj 2009

  • The Italian medieval poet Dante was the first to have recorded the term lingua d'oc.

    Metropolis movie poster and clip in German mj 2009

  • Hoc cognoscentes, ponebant custodiam ori suo, ut non delinquerent in lingua sua; ideoque concaluit cor earum intra eas, et 'in meditacione earum exarsit ignis (Ps. XXXVIII, 4) ille Dominus Deus noster, consumens omnem rubiginem uiciorum.

    Sensual Encounters: Monastic Women and Spirituality in Medieval Germany 2008

  • If you do have bad breath and you believe the culprit is a dark or hairy tongue, you could have condition known as lingua villosa nigra.

    Dr. Harold Katz: Bad Breath and Your Tongue Dr. Harold Katz 2011

  • If you do have bad breath and you believe the culprit is a dark or hairy tongue, you could have condition known as lingua villosa nigra.

    Dr. Harold Katz: Bad Breath and Your Tongue Dr. Harold Katz 2011

  • If you do have bad breath and you believe the culprit is a dark or hairy tongue, you could have condition known as lingua villosa nigra.

    Dr. Harold Katz: Bad Breath and Your Tongue Dr. Harold Katz 2011

  • If you do have bad breath and you believe the culprit is a dark or hairy tongue, you could have condition known as lingua villosa nigra.

    Dr. Harold Katz: Bad Breath and Your Tongue Dr. Harold Katz 2011

  • While he leans decidedly toward the descriptivist camp, he believes experts ought to acknowledge the public's need for guidance on how to speak and write standard English -- that is, the lingua franca of official, public and commercial life in the English-speaking world.

    Salon 2009

  • Whatever audience they target, they speak a lingua franca of anti-white, anti-Semitic, anti-American hatred racists such as al-Mansour constitute a significant proportion of these hate mongers?

    Winds Of Jihad By SheikYerMami 2008

  • Whatever audience they target, they speak a lingua franca of anti-white, anti-Semitic, anti-American hatred-all in the name of Allah.

    Pat Dollard | Young Americans 2008

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