ppl. a. [Locative comb. f. TONGUE sb. + TIED ppl. a.; becoming at length pa. pple. of TONGUE-TIE v.] Tied as to or in the tongue.
1. Having the frænum of the tongue too short, so that its movement is impeded or confined; incapable of distinct utterance from this cause; also, unable to speak, dumb (poet.).
1530. Palsgr., 262/1. Tongetyed, qui a le filet.
16[?]. Swinburne, Spousals (1686), 19. Until that time they are as it were Tongue-tied, being unable to speak.
1707. J. Stevens, trans. Quevedo’s Com. Wks. (1709), 389. If she were deaf, and Tongue-ty’d.
1849–52. Todd’s Cycl. Anat., IV. 1153/2. The tongue may be unnaturally fixed … the individual thus circumstanced being tongue-tied.
2. fig. Restrained or debarred from speaking or free expression from any cause; speechless, mute, dumb, silent; also reticent, reserved.
1529. More, Dyaloge, I. Wks. 107/2. He is of nature nothing tonge tayed.
1571. Golding, Calvin on Ps. iii. 5. He himselfe was not tungtyde, but rather lifted up his voyce.
1576. Gascoigne, Steele Gl. (Arb.), 57. Nor none serue God, but only tongtide men.
1600. Holland, Livy, X. xix. 364. A dumbe and tongue-tide [elinguis] Consull.
1640. Yorke, Union Hon., Commend. Verses. Criticks be tongue-ti’d, stand, admire.
1734. trans. Rollin’s Anc. Hist., XVIII. i. (1827), VII. 357. Fear kept them all tongue-tied and dumb.
1886. Stevenson, Kidnapped, xxvi. I was … sitting tongue-tied between shame and merriment.
Hence Tongue-tiedness.
1597. A. M., trans. Guillemeau’s Fr. Chirurg., 24/2. When as we would cut the tunge-tyednes in yonge children nuely borne.
1661. Lovell, Hist. Anim. & Min., 348. The ancylosis, or tongue-tiednesse, caused, by the vinculum; it’s cured, by cutting the same with a paire of cisers or sharp knife.
1894. Mrs. H. Ward, Marcella, I. iv. 59. This tongue-tiedness—this clumsy intrusion—which she must feel to be an indelicacy—an outrage.
