languette

English

Etymology

From Old French languete (modern French languette), diminutive of langue (“tongue”), from Latin lingua.

Noun

languette (plural languettes)

1. Alternative form of languet
   1. A tongue-shaped implement.
      • 1854, The United Service Magazine, page 98:

        The languette, or plate, is fixed between the two rows of caps, one of its extremities upon the two right-hand caps, the other extending on the left beyond the base of the rectangle.

      • 1985, D. V. Clarke, Trevor G. Cowie, Andrew Foxon, Symbols of Power: At the Time of Stonehenge, →ISBN, page 308:

        Bronze sword. The curved heel has a small central languette or tongue.

   2. A tongue-like organ found on tunicates.
      • 1892, Annals & Magazine of Natural History, page 483:

        This naturalist believes that the apparatus by the aid of which the act is performed is the series of dorsal languettes or the organs which represent them.

      • 1962, Proceedings of the Helminthological Society of Washington, page 1:

        The wing-like opisthohaptor, bearing two rows of clamps placed end to end and separated by an anchorbearing lobe or languette -- in effect forming a straight angle -- is distinctive.

      • 1968, Dawes, The Trematoda, →ISBN, page 179:

        Opisthaptor: four pairs of pedunculate suckers (cup-like and with circular or oval apertures) and a terminal languette 0.11 mm. long and 0.03 mm. broad.

2. Synonym of lingula
   1. bony tongue-shaped structure on the mandible
      • 1834, James Wilson, James Duncan, Entomologia Edinensis:

        At the root of the languette, and a little below the middle of the interior space which intervenes between the mandibles, is placed the pharynx.

      • 1853, The Encyclopaedia Britannica:

        The languette, at first very small, as in the genus Atypus, afterwards becomes elongated and advanced between the jaws.

   2. fleshy tongue-shaped structure
      • 1865, The Transactions of the Microscopical Society of London:

        Lastly, the stem of each auditory hair presents a sort of appendage (the languette), to which the nerve of the hair is attached.

      • 1973, H. Graham Stack, The palmar fascia, page 51:

        Proximally to the ligament this exposes the languette of the palmar fascia. Some of the fibres of this languette which pierce the subcutaneous layer system are demonstrated.

      • 1974, Robert Donington, The interpretation of early music, page 518:

        It is a certainty that the windpipe of the larynx (l'anche du larynx), that is to say the little tongue (languette) or its opening, contributes more directly to the [performance of florid] passages and divisions than the other parts, in as much as it has to mark the degrees and the intervals which are made in sustaining the passage; which can only occur from the different openings of the little tongue (languette), as I have shown in speaking of low and high sound.

3. A tongue-shaped design used to decorate Ancient Greek pottery.
   • 1979, Petros G. Themelis, John Boardman, Lefkandi: The protogeometric building at Toumba:

     The foregoing analysis suggests that smaller dimensions and decoration with languettes are characteristic of hydrias in our assemblage, though neither criterion need be applicable in other regions or even in other PG periods at Lefkandi. (41)

   • 1999, Gocha R. Tsetskhladze, Ancient Greeks West and East, →ISBN:

     It has a spherical body, and is decorated at top and bottom with languettes, or 'tongue' ornament.

   • 2002, Irene S. Lemos, The Protogeometric Aegean: The Archaeology of the Late Eleventh and Tenth Centuries BC, →ISBN:

     In addition to languettes, vertical wavy lines were used to divide the circles and the semicircles, as was seen on the amphorae (Plate 92.3).

4. A type of decorative hood used on a woman's bodice in the seventeenth century.
5. The tongue of a reed on a harmonium.
   • 2001, Colombian folclorics instruments, page 74:

     The instrument had to be soaked in water for a short time so the languette became soft again.

6. An elongated samara that occurs alone.
   • 1889, Annie Chambers Ketchum, Botany for Academies and Colleges: Consisting of Plant Development, page 144:

     In the Maple (Fig. 205) each fruit has two samarae united at base. In the Ash there is but one to each flower; its long wing gives it the name languette (little tongue, Fr.)

7. A valve flap associated with the byssus of a mollusk.
   • 1867, Charles Knight, Natural History:

     The mantle entirely envelops the animal, and forms three apertures, one of which serves for the passage of the byssus and the languette;

   • 1889, Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology - Volume 18, page 442:

     Below it is the more fleshy languette or curtain valve which closes the incurrent siphonal opening when required.

French

Etymology

From langue (“tongue”) +‎ -ette (“diminutive suffix”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lɑ̃.ɡɛt/

• Audio

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Noun

languette f (plural languettes)

1. a small tongue-shaped object, such as the tongue of a shoe

Further reading

• “languette”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.