speaking in tongues

American

noun

a form of glossolalia in which a person experiencing religious ecstasy utters incomprehensible sounds that the speaker believes are a language spoken through them by a deity.

speaking in tongues British

noun

another term for gift of tongues

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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speaking in tongues

Smitten by him and enraptured by the practice of speaking in tongues, which was thought to be channeling the divine, Aimee married him in 1908.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 24, 2025

Stanton delivered regular sermons to community residents, which included exorcisms and speaking in tongues.

From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2024

Neo-Charismatic Pentecostals, or Neo-Pentecostals, put an emphasis very much on the gifts of the Spirit: speaking in tongues, miracles, prophecy, things like that.

From Slate ● Jan. 6, 2024

Occasionally an insistent, "Ah-shondadal-i!" from an intercessor speaking in tongues rode toward us on a breeze.

From Salon ● Feb. 20, 2022

The grannies were chanting and murmuring and swaying back and forth, speaking in tongues.

From "Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" by Trevor Noah

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023