tongue

The tongue is the muscular part in your mouth that helps you taste, speak, and swallow. It is also tied to what people say and how they say it. You might "hold your tongue" when you stop yourself from speaking, or say someone has a "sharp tongue" when they speak in a harsh or unkind way.

The word "tongue" can also mean a language, especially in a formal, literary, or old-fashioned style. So, learning a new tongue means learning a new language. It can also refer to a person's manner of speaking, especially when their words have a strong effect on others.

The tongue is the muscular organ in the mouth that plays an important part in taste, speech, and swallowing. It helps move food around, forms sounds for speech, and contains taste buds that let us notice flavors such as sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami.

The word is also often used in a figurative way to mean speech or the power of spoken words. We talk about someone having "a sharp tongue" if they speak cruelly, "a silver tongue" if they speak in a smooth and persuasive way, or "biting your tongue" when you stop yourself from saying something.

Beyond the physical meaning, "tongue" can also mean a language, especially in formal, poetic, religious, or older writing. If someone speaks "three tongues," they speak three languages. The phrase "mother tongue" means the first language a person learns as a child.

In some contexts, "tongue" can also mean a style or variety of speech. In older expressions, it may stand for a people or group identified by their language. So the word can point to a body part, spoken words, a language, or a way of speaking, depending on the context.