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Glite Dictionary
to lose one's tongue

to lose one's tongue

8.1
Become unable to speak when you feel nervous or embarrassed
  • idiom
: quedarse mudo
  • He seems to have lost his tongue.

Examples

  • He was so surprised by the unexpected news that he lost his tongue for a moment.

  • Apparently, you lost your tongue along with your truck.

    The Da Vinci Code (2006)

  • Have you lost your tongue?

    Trader Horn (1931)

  • Have you lost your tongue?

    Trader Horn (1931)

  • What's the matter, you lost your tongue?

    Bloodbath at the House of Death (1984)

  • When she saw the big crowd of people, she completely lost her tongue and couldn't speak.

  • After her embarrassing mistake, she lost her tongue and didn't know what to say.

Synonyms

to choke on one's words
vsto lose one's tongue
7.8

To stop speaking because you feel nervous, embarrassed, or upset

is unable to speak suddenly from shock and fear and embarrassment

How Speechless

to lose one's tongue
8.1
to hesitate
301 2.5

Surface Forms

lose one's tongue infinitive
losing one's tongue present participle
loses one's tongue third person singular
lost one's tongue past
lost one's tongue past participle

Morphology

lose + one + tongue

The meaning 'to become unable to speak' is directly inferable from combining 'lose' (to be without) with 'tongue' (the organ of speech); the phrase transparently maps loss of the speech organ to loss of ability to speak. Similar constructions exist cross-linguistically (e.g. expressions meaning 'become speechless'), so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words is likely to understand this sense.

Etymology

Lose one's tongue may come from the strong image of the tongue being lost or frozen so a person cannot speak. So the phrase means 'to become suddenly unable to speak', often because you are nervous, shocked, or surprised.