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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

tongs.

An instrument or tool used for picking things up without touching them with the hands or fingers, consisting of two slats or grips hinged at the end or in the middle, and sometimes including a spring to open the grips.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/tɒŋz/Received-Pronunciation/tɔŋz/General-American/tɑŋz/cot-caught-merger
  1. An instrument or tool used for picking things up without touching them with the hands or fingers, consisting of two slats or grips hinged at the end or in the middle, and sometimes including a spring to open the grips.

    plural · plural-only
  2. A large scissors-like two-piece center-hinged forged-iron implement with oval-loop handles and with pointed tips turned inward (in the same plane as and perpendicular to the handles) to facilitate lifting and carrying a block of ice. Often called ice tongs.

    broadly · plural · plural-only
Where this word comes from

From Middle English tonges, equivalent to tong (“tool for manipulating things in a fire”) + -s.

noun/tɒŋz/Received-Pronunciation/tɔŋz/General-American/tɑŋz/cot-caught-merger
  1. plural of tong (“instrument”)

    form-of · plural
verb/tɒŋz/Received-Pronunciation/tɔŋz/General-American/tɑŋz/cot-caught-merger
  1. third-person singular simple present indicative of tong

    form-of · indicative · present · singular · third-person
noun/tɒŋz/Received-Pronunciation/tɔŋz/General-American/tɑŋz/cot-caught-merger
  1. plural of tong (“Chinese secret society”)

    form-of · plural
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.