wicked tongue

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

wicked tongue (plural wicked tongues)

1. (idiomatic) An abusive, vulgar, nasty, or otherwise objectionable manner of speaking.
   • c. 1870, Geoffrey Chaucer (original), David Laing Purves (modern translation), The Canterbury Tales, The Manciple's Tale:

     My son, keep well thy tongue, and keep thy friend;

     A wicked tongue is worse than is a fiend

   • 1839, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, translated by Thomas Carlyle, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Travels, Book VII, ch. 3:

     [W]hen I met with any despicable thing, I hesitated not to call it so; and men had never done with talking of my restless head and wicked tongue.

   • 1897, Frances Hodgson Burnett, chapter 14, in His Grace of Osmonde:

     [T]he stories which came to his ears . . . sometimes spoke strange evil of her—of her violent temper, of her wicked tongue, of her outraging of all customs and decencies.

   • 1917, Thornton W. Burgess, chapter 18, in The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver:

     He called him everything he could think of, and this was a great deal, for Sammy has a wicked tongue.

   • 1999 January 14, Geoffrey Macnab, “Arts: Strong, conniving women: the final frontier”, in The Independent, UK, retrieved 12 May 2014:

     She lies, steals and sleeps around, gleefully spreading malicious rumours wherever she goes. "I like strong, conniving women with wicked tongues," Roos explains.

   • 2007 February 4, Marilyn Stasio, “Murder Most Suburban”, in New York Times, retrieved 12 May 2014:

     Playing amateur sleuth . . . frees her wicked tongue to spill the beans about her neighbors’ secret vices and adulterous affairs.

• foul-mouthed
• guttermouth
• potty mouth
• sharp tongue
• silver tongue