tongueless

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

From Middle English tongeles, tunglees, equivalent to tongue + -less. Cognate with Old Norse tungulauss (“tongueless”).

But to her heart her heart was voluble, Paining with eloquence her balmy side; As though a tongueless nightingale should swell Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled in her dell. — From Chaucer to Tennyson: With Twenty-Nine Portraits and Selections from Thirty Authors, Henry A. (Henry Augustin) Beers
They deified the crocodile of the Nile, because the crocodile is tongueless; and the Sperm Whale has no tongue, or at least it is so exceedingly small, as to be incapable of protrusion. — Moby Dick; Or, The Whale, Herman Melville

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