Tung
name, noun ·1 syllable ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Obsolete spelling of tongue, both as language and as part of the body. alt-of, obsolete
"I am of this opinion that our own tung shold be written cleane and pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borowing of other tunges, …"
- 2 A tung tree.
- 3 Chinese tree bearing seeds that yield tung oil wordnet
- 1 Synonym of Lincoln Island.
"A U.S. military plane intruded into China's air space over the area of Tung Island of the Hsisha Islands in Kwangtung Province between 16:00 hours and 16:03 hours on February 9. A spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry has been authorised, in relation to this military provocation by the U.S. military plane, to issue the 482nd serious warning."
Example
More examples"The true philosophical Act is annihilation of self (Selbsttötung); this is the real beginning of all Philosophy; all requisites for being a Disciple of Philosophy point hither. This Act alone corresponds to all the conditions and characteristics of transcendental conduct."
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.
From Chinese 桐 (tóng).
From Mandarin 東島 /东岛 Wade–Giles romanization: Tung¹-tao³.
Related phrases
More for "tung"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.