tongue

1. (countable, uncountable) Such an organ, as taken from animals and used for food (especially from cows).Examples: "cold tongue with mustard"; "However you eat them, tongue and chicken and new bread are very good things, and no one minds being sprinkled a little with soda-water on a really fine hot day."countableuncountable

2. (metonymic) A language.Examples: "He was speaking in his native tongue."; "[…] that great Towre, which is so much renownd For tongues confusion in holie writ,"; "When I pointed to any thing, she told me the Name of it in her own Tongue, so that in a few Days I was able to call for whatever I had a mind to."Synonyms: idiom, language, lingocountablemetonymicallyuncountable

3. (obsolete, synecdochically) The speakers of a language, collectively.Examples: "I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory."countableobsoleteuncountable

4. (obsolete) A voice, (the distinctive sound of a person's speech); accent (distinctive manner of pronouncing a language).Examples: "Who are you? Tell me, for more certainty, Albeit I’ll swear that I do know your tongue."; "[...] one of [the prisoners], whom by his tongue I knew to be a Scotchman, lamented most piteously [...]"countableobsoleteuncountable

5. (synecdochically, usually in the plural) A person speaking in a specified manner.Examples: "I know that we must keep apart for a long while; cruel tongues would force us apart, if nothing else did."; "[…] it was obvious to his listeners that Pittypat, in his mind, was still a plump and charming miss of sixteen who must be sheltered against evil tongues."; "2007, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Wizard of the Crow, New York: Knopf Doubleday, Book 4, p. 592, … the drunk, who had been a permanent fixture in that bar, changed location and thereafter moved from bar to bar, saying to inquisitive tongues, Too long a stay in one seat tires the buttocks."countableplural-normallyuncountable

6. (obsolete) Discourse; the fluency of speech or expression.countableobsoleteuncountable