tong2+

An old spelling of tongue. tonga (tong'gä), n. [ The Him a lay an tonga is a thing of delight. It is easily described, for in principle it is the ancient Persian war chariot, though the accommodation is so modified as to allow four persons to sit in it back to back. F. M. Crawford, Mr. Isaacs, ix. Tonga bean (tong'ga bēn). See tonka - bean. two arms joined together by a spring at the top, as sugar tongs; and those in which the arms joined together by a pivot near the lower end, as the blacksmiths' Tongan (tong'gan), a. and n. [ tongs. Their special names are chiefly descriptive of the shape of the short arms of the two levers that form the biting part or jaw, as flat - bit tongs, crook-tongs, etc. Tongs are also named from their use, as bottle -tongs, crucible tongs, wire-tongs, etc. (See ice-tongs, lazy-tongs, oyster tongs, pipe-tongs, sugar-tongs.) Now always used in the plural, and often in the phrase pair of tongs, designating one implement. The plural form is also rarely used as a singular. See cut in next column, and cuts under pinch ing-tongs and punch. def.) + -an.] I. a. Relating to the Tonga Islands. See II. II. n. An inhabitant of the Tonga or Friendly Islands, a group of islands (so called from Tonga or Tonga-tabu, one of the chief islands) and kingdom in the South Pacific, east-southeast of the Fiji Islands.