a. [See -LESS.]

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  1.  lit. Having no tongue, without a tongue.

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1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVIII. xxxii. (Bodl. MS.). Amonge beestes of þe londe he [the crocodile] is tungles.

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1570.  Levins, Manip., 91/16. Tonguelesse, elinguis, e.

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1611.  Cotgr., Gouttreuse, a certain white, long-beaked, and tonglesse bird [a pelican].

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1738.  Gentl. Mag., VIII. 524/1. I doubt very much, whether a Tongueless Person, or one that is without a Roof to the Mouth, can Taste.

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1876.  L. Stephen, Eng. Th. 18th C., I. IV. vi. 267. The miracle of the tongueless confessor is mentioned by Gibbon as resting on remarkably good evidence.

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1879.  Boddam-Whetham, Roraima & Brit. Guiana, 171, note. Herodotus, too, who was a keen observer of the crocodile, repeats the idea that it is tongueless.

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1907.  Q. Rev., July, 201. The most revered objects in the ti are the bells, usually tongueless.

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  2.  Without the faculty of voice or speech, dumb, mute; also, without speaking, speechless, silent.

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1447.  Bokenham, Seyntys (Roxb.), 196. Why stonde ye thus stylle, be ye tunglees?

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1542.  Udall, Erasm. Apoph., 287 b. That persone, by whose benefite thou art made of a tounglesse bodye, eloquente.

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1630.  J. Taylor (Water P.), Anagrams & Sonn., Wks. II. 256/2. Now chirping birds are all turn’d tounglesse mutes.

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1630.  Lennard, trans. Charron’s Wisd., I. xxxi. (1670), 90. We go with our heads hanging,… our mouths tongueless.

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1824.  J. Symmons, trans. Æschylus’ Agamemnon, 73.

        The mighty judges heard the tongueless plea,
And cast their ballots in the stedfast urn,
Not one, but all.

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  b.  Said of things.

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1593.  Shaks., Rich. II., I. i. 105. Euen from the toonglesse cauernes of the earth.

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1624.  F. White, Repl. Fisher, 92. The consent of the Church alone … ought to be of greater esteeme … than all mute and tonguelesse Bookes.

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a. 1822.  Shelley, Ess. & Lett. (1852), I. 138. There is eloquence in the tongueless wind.

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1868.  J. H. Newman, Verses Var. Occas., 9. I cannot bear those sullen walls, Those eyeless towers, those tongueless halls.

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  † 3.  Not spoken of; unmentioned. Obs. rare.

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1611.  Shaks., Wint. T., I. i. 92. One good deed, dying tonguelesse, Slaughters a thousand, wayting vpon that.

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