tong

plural tongs

1. pluralAn instrument or tool used for manipulating things in a fire without touching them with the hands.

   […] these attributes are concrete expressions of God's care and providence and therefore not man-made. This explains the quite bizarre presence of a ‘pair’ of tongs in some lists: in order to make a tong one needs a tong, and how could the first tong be made without a tong?

   1998, Alberdina Houtman, Marcel Poorthuis, Joshua Schwartz, editors, Sanctity of time and space in tradition and modernity, page 232

present singular third person tongs · participle present tonging · participle past tonged · past tonged

1. intransitiveTo use tongs.
2. transitiveTo grab, manipulate or transport something using tongs.

plural tongs

1. A Chinese lineage organization responsible for managing ancestral land.

   An Ordinance to provide for the termination of the Block Crown Lease of Cheung Chau granted to Wong Wai Tsak Tong and for sub-lessees under the Block Crown Lease to hold directly from the Crown.

   1995, Legislative Council of Hong Kong, “Block Crown Lease (Cheung Chau) Ordinance”, in Hong Kong Government Gazette, page A2772

2. A Chinese secret society or gang.

plural tongs

1. obsoleteObsolete spelling of tongue.

   1 more example

   Or plaine and perfite way of teachyng children, to vnderstand, write, and speake, the Latin tong, but specially purposed for the priuate brynging vp of youth in Ientlemen and Noble mens houses, and commodious also for all such, as haue forgot the Latin tonge, and would, by themselues, without a Scholemaster, in short tyme, and with small paines, recouer a sufficient habilitie, to vnderstand, write, and speake Latin.

   1570, Roger Ascham, The Scholemaster

plural Tongs

1. countableuncountableA surname.
2. A place in the United Kingdom:
   1. countableuncountableA hamlet in Headcorn parish, Maidstone district, Kent, England (OS grid ref TQ8346).
   2. countableuncountableA village and civil parish in eastern Shropshire, England (OS grid ref SJ7907).
   3. countableuncountableA small village in the Metropolitan Borough of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England (OS grid ref SE2230).
   4. countableuncountableA village north of Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Western Isles council area, Scotland (OS grid ref NB4436).