tonguey
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Forms: form: tonguier
form: more tonguey
form: tonguiest
form: most tonguey
form: tonguy
Etymology: From Middle English tungy, tungi, equivalent to tongue + -y. Compare Old English tynġe (“fluent, eloquent, skillful”).
Senses: examples: text: 1608, Philip Woodward, Bels Trial Examined, Doai, Preface,
Seeing then he is now so mute, that before was so tonguy […]
text: “You air a tongue-y person, Gen’ral. For you talk too much, and that’s a fact,” said Scadder. “You speak a-larmingly well in public, but you didn’t ought to go ahead so fast in private. Now!”
ref: 1844, Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, Chapter , p. 267:
text: “[…] He had many friends who loved him truly and they tried to persuade him to escape, but by unanswerable arguments he proved to them how wrong they were.” ¶ “Humph!” grunted Sallie. “Tonguey to de last! An’ in de wrong way to de wrong ones.”
ref: 1921, Leila Amos Pendleton, “The Foolish and the Wise: Sallie Runner Is Introduced to Socrates”, in Marcy Jane Knopf-Newman, editor, The Sleeper Wakes: Harlem Renaissance Stories by Women, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, page 163:
synonyms: garrulous
loquacious
talkative
glosses: Tending to talk a lot; fluent or voluble in speech (generally with an unfavourable connotation).
raw_tags: of a person
examples: text: 1885, J. H. Battle, Kentucky: A History of the State, Louisville, KY: F.A. Battey, “Biographical Sketches,” p. 839,
[…] personal abuse and tonguy sarcasm are not elements of success in law practice.
text: “I have listened,” he said, “to the talk that Justice Rowan has given us. It’s very fine and tonguey, but it smothers up the facts. […]”
ref: 1896, F. Hopkinson Smith, Tom Grogan, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, Chapter , p. 186:
text: those points especially warming to tonguey gossip—the neighboring tavern and country-store
ref: 1916, Kate Stephens, “Our Country Newspaper: The Genesis of Its Spirit”, in Workfellows in Social Progression, New York: Sturgis & Walton, page 45:
synonyms: bombastic
flowery
verbose
glosses: Using many words; containing grandiloquent expressions; marked by rhetorical elegance (generally with an unfavourable connotation).
raw_tags: of speech
examples: text: […] even his tonguey confidence and ingenuousness could glean but little satisfaction from his interviews with the rheumatic and unbelieving old woman.
ref: 1887, Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, “The Bar Light-House”, in A Humble Romance, and Other Stories, New York: Harper & Brothers, page 182:
glosses: Manifested by fluent or voluble speech.
raw_tags: of a quality
examples: text: Wully seated himself upon the corner of the kitchen table, from beneath which appeared a dog’s welcoming nose accompanied by a tonguey, tooth-trimmed grin.
ref: 1918, F. Roney Weir, chapter 13, in Merry Andrew, Boston: Small, Maynard, page 187:
text: They take each other’s hands and kiss goodbye, a longish tonguey kiss […]
ref: 1988, Hanif Kureishi, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, London: Faber and Faber, page 8:
glosses: Involving the tongue.
examples: text: 1882, Albert Kellogg, Forest Trees of California, Sacramento: J.D. Young, “The Noble Silver Fir,” p. 34,
These tonguey bracts or scaly appendages […] never become shorter than the proper cone scales, or so as to be hid from outside view.
text: […] the brain-aura […] crowns the head after the manner of the tonguey flames of a torch.
ref: 1903, Fred Max, chapter 1, in Soul-Return, Boston: E.H. Bacon, page 21:
text: Fleur leans back against the kitchen table, letting her face be licked by the tonguey vapour of her coffee-cup.
ref: 2003, Toby Litt, Finding Myself, Penguin, published 2004, page 158:
glosses: Resembling a tongue.
Related terms: glossal
lingual
tonguely