tung – English noun declension

English noun forms of tung

Noun: tung
Singulartung
Pluraltungs

Sample Sentences

  • I am of this opinion that our own tung shold be written cleane and pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borowing of other tunges, … [1557 July 16, John Cheke, “"Inkhorn" terms: Sir John Cheke”, in Univ of Victoria, Canada, retrieved 29 Sep 2012:]
  • … ever exposed to their envy, and the tung of slander … [1790, Noah Webster, “The Founders' Constitution Vol 1, Chap 15, Doc 44”, in Univ. of Chicago, retrieved 29 Sep 2012:]
  • Our common orthography is incorrect; the true spelling is tung. [1832, Noah Webster, Edmund Henry Barker, A Dictionary of the English Language, Digitized edition, Black and Young, published 2010, page 542:]
  • … words to be spoken with the understanding, that I may teach others also, than myriads of words, in a tung. ... In the law, it hath been written, That, with other tungs and other lips I will speak to this people, and then they will not hear ... [1848, Jonathan Morgan, The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Digitized edition, SH Colesworthy, published 2008, page 215:]
  • If they've got anything to say which they want you to hear, let 'em say it out; if not, hold their tungs. [1872, Hugh Rowley, Sage stuffing for green goslings; or, Saws for the goose and saws, Digitized edition, published 2006, page 159:]
  • English has strength, simplicity, conciseness, capacity for taking words freely from other tungs, and best of all has the greatest literature the world has yet produced. [2002 Fall, Richard Whelan, quoting Melvil Dewey, “The American Spelling Reform Movement”, in Verbatim, The Language Quarterly, volume XXVII, number 4, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 5:]

Etymology

From Middle English tonge, from Old English tung, tunge (“tongue, language”), from Proto-West Germanic *tungā, from Proto-Germanic *tungǭ (“tongue”); along with Dutch tong, German Zunge, Swedish tunga, from Proto-Indo-European *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s. See: Middle English Nouns 'tonge', Dutch Nouns 'tong', German Nouns 'Zunge', Swedish Nouns 'tunga'.