Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An old spelling of tongue.
  • Simplified, and former, spellings of tongue, tongued.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun simplified, and former, spelling of tongue
  • noun A tung tree.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun Chinese tree bearing seeds that yield tung oil

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English tung, from Old English tung, tunge ("tongue, language"), from Proto-Germanic *tungōn (“tongue”). Liken Dutch tong, German Zunge, Swedish tunga), from Proto-Indo-European *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Sinitic tong

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word tung.

Examples

  • Nana himself was a burly, fat-faced rascal with curly mustachioes and a shifty look - what they call a tung admi, * (* Literally, "a tight man".) dressed in more silks and jewels than a French whore, sliding his eyes across Moore and me and whispering behind a plump hand to the woman beside him.

    Fiancée 2010

  • Nana himself was a burly, fat-faced rascal with curly mustachioes and a shifty look — what they call a tung admi, * (* Literally, "a tight man".) dressed in more silks and jewels than a French whore, sliding his eyes across Moore and me and whispering behind a plump hand to the woman beside him.

    Flashman In The Great Game Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- 1975

  • Nana himself was a burly, fat-faced rascal with curly mustachioes and a shifty look - what they call a tung admi, * (* Literally, "a tight man".) dressed in more silks and jewels than a French whore, sliding his eyes across Moore and me and whispering behind a plump hand to the woman beside him.

    Flashman In The Great Game Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- 1975

  • It would be unfair to say, as many do, that Mao Tse-tung is not a patriot and a nationalist.

    Red China—Five years of Dramatic Events 1965

  • By 1960, China was experiencing a full-blown depression of staggering proportions, a phenomenon which, according to Lenin and Mao Tse-tung is exclusively reserved for the decadent capitalist world.

    Red China—Five years of Dramatic Events 1965

  • Yung-p'ing-hsien lay over to the right, fifteen li from Ch'u-tung, which is protected from the elements by a bell-shaped hill at the foot of a mountain lit up with gold from the sinking sun, which dipped as I trudged along the uneven zigzag road leading across the plain of peas and beans and winter crops.

    Across China on Foot Edwin John Dingle 1926

  • The other is at An-tung, which is important because of its situation on the Yalu River opposite the Korean frontier.

    New Forces in Old China : An Inevitable Awakening 1904

  • In some trees, such as tung, cessation of growth and the initiation of rest is caused by the change from long to short day-lengths.

    Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting Guelph, Ontario, September 3, 4, 5, 1947

  • Siding with Wilson as the controversy gained momentum, a Cambridge University classicist, Sir John Cheke, was equally repulsed by the recent developments: “I am of this opinion that our own tung should be written cleane and pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borowing of other tunges.”

    The English Is Coming! Leslie Dunton-Downer 2010

  • Siding with Wilson as the controversy gained momentum, a Cambridge University classicist, Sir John Cheke, was equally repulsed by the recent developments: “I am of this opinion that our own tung should be written cleane and pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borowing of other tunges.”

    The English Is Coming! Leslie Dunton-Downer 2010

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.