The flexible muscular organ in the mouth that is used to movefood 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.
This organ, as taken from animals used for food (especially cows).−
From Middle English tonge, tunge, tung, from Old English tunge, from Proto-West Germanic *tungā, from Proto-Germanic *tungǭ ("tongue") (compare West Frisian tonge, Dutch tong, Luxembourgish Zong, German Zunge, Yiddish צונג, Danish tunge, Norwegian Bokmål tunge, Swedish tunga, Gothic 𐍄𐌿𐌲𐌲𐍉), from Proto-Indo-European *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s.
See also Old Irish tengae, Latin lingua, Tocharian A käntu, Tocharian B kantwo, Lithuanian liežùvis, Russian язык, Polish język, Old Armenian լեզու, Avestan 𐬵𐬌𐬰𐬎𐬎𐬁, Ashkun žū, Kamkata-viri dić, Sanskrit जिह्वा. langue, and lingua.
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