a. Also 4–5 tungy, 7–9 tonguy. [f. TONGUE sb. + -Y.]
1. Full of ‘tongue’ or talk; talkative, loquacious (now U.S. and dial.); of hounds, ‘giving tongue.’
1382. Wyclif, Ecclus. viii. 4. Striue thou not with a tungy man.
a. 1774. R. Fergusson, Sandie & Willie, 55.
| Before a tonguey woman’s noisy plea | |
| Should ever be a cause to danton me. |
1836. Life on the Lakes, I. 54 (Thornton). We had on board a very tonguey Yankee lawyer.
1855. Egerton-Warburton, Hunting Songs (1877), 102. Your babblers draft, as we our tonguey hounds.
1896. Howells, Impressions & Exp., 39. There were some men … tongueyer than the rest.
2. That is so ‘in tongue’ or ‘in word,’ not ‘in deed’ (cf. 1 John iii. 18). nonce-use.
1612. W. Sclater, Chr. Strength, 10. Alas! how many bare, tonguy Christians! Linguists only, in religion.
3. Of the nature of the tongue; produced or modified by the tongue; lingual.
1859. F. Francis, Newton Dogvane (1888), 25. He set that tonguey pendulum of his going.
1885. H. C. Deacon, in Grove, Dict. Mus., IV. 321/1. The quality of the voice … will be tonguey, throaty, palatal, or veiled, according to the part thus unnecessarily brought into play.
Hence Tonguiness.
1607. Collins, Serm. (1608), 77. Some mens silence profits the Church of Christ more than all their tonguinesse can doe it hurt.
1910. Boston (Mass.) Transcript, 16 July, 2/3. The natural gift of what the old Yankee horse traders would have called tonguiness.
