lingua
Americannoun
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linguae
plural
noun
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the technical name for tongue
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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
It’s the kind of zippy, immersive crime thriller that reminds you of the international lingua franca that Scorsese all but invented with “Goodfellas.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 18, 2025
Somalia is to introduce Swahili, the lingua franca of East Africa, to its national curriculum, the president has announced.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2025
Few spoke English, and the lingua franca was an amalgam of many tongues known as Fanagalo.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
Reminded that technically the war was over for Russia, Kisselev confessed a "lapsus linguae."
From Time Magazine Archive
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
Tom grinned—but seeing no one stir, "Another lapsus linguae, sir!"
From The Canadian Elocutionist by Anna Kelsey Howard
In 1532 appeared his Thesaurus linguae Latinae, a dictionary of Latin words and phrases, upon which for two years he had toiled incessantly, with no other assistance than that of Thierry of Beauvais.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 7 "Equation" to "Ethics" by Various
Miss Sallianna wound up by saying, that it would be an affair of rare and opprobrious interest; and, as a comedy, would be positively deleterious, which was probably a lapsus linguae for "delicious."
From The Last of the Foresters Or, Humors on the Border; A story of the Old Virginia Frontier by John Esten Cooke
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.
