languet

plural languets

1. A tongue-shaped implement, specifically:
   1. engineeringA narrow blade on the edge of a spade or shovel.
   2. engineeringA piece of metal on a sword hilt which overhangs the scabbard.
   3. engineeringA flat plate in (or opposite and below the mouth of) the pipe of an organ.

      If there is music for this it’s windy strings and reed sections standing in bright shirt fronts and black ties all along the beach, a robed organist by the breakwater—itself broken, crusted with tides—whose languets and flues gather and shape the resident spooks here.

      1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

      Synonyms: language, languid

2. archaicA narrow tongue of land.
3. biologyA tongue-like organ found on certain tunicates.