lingua
Americannoun
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linguae
plural
noun
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the technical name for tongue
-
any tongue-like structure
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of lingua
1665–75; < Latin; akin to tongue
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
This entails programs to promote standard Chinese as the national lingua franca, instill pride in Chinese cultural heritage and exert stronger central control over regions with large ethnic-minority populations such as Tibet and Xinjiang.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 12, 2026
His Russian has improved in prison, where it is a lingua franca among the inmates.
From Barron's ● Jan. 30, 2026
To mix languages, English is the lingua franca of F1.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2024
Today I live in Taiwan, where Mandarin Chinese is the lingua franca, and fixtures of the California accent have attached itself to my Chinese.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2023
Mice do not speak Lapine, but there is a very simple, limited lingua franca of the hedgerow and woodland.
From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams
Reminded that technically the war was over for Russia, Kisselev confessed a "lapsus linguae."
From Time Magazine Archive
Even a lapsus linguae, "you uns," was unmistakable amidst the high-flown periods.
From The Raid of The Guerilla and Other Stories by Charles Egbert Craffock
In his reply, Mr. Van Buren made his only known lapsus linguae by addressing them as the "Democratic corps."
From Perley's Reminiscences, v. 1-2 of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis by Benjamin Perley Poore
The poems ascribed to him possess great spirit, and prove that he was, as Giraldus terms him, "linguae dicacis," in its best sense.
From The itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales by Giraldus Cambrensis
"The devil they do, ma'am!" bolted out Richard, gruffly; and then, ashamed of his /lapsus linguae/, screwed up his lips firmly, and glared on the company with an eye of indignant fire.
From My Novel — Volume 05 by Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
