blue tongue, blue-tongue
1. [Afrikaans bloutong.] A virus disease affecting horses and sheep, in which the tongue becomes swollen and blue. orig. S. Afr.
| 1863 J. S. Dobie S. Afr. Jrnl. 19 Apr. (1945) 86 Blue tongue here also (which is a swelling of the tongue and lips which prevents the poor beast from eating). 1887 Rider Haggard Jess viii, It's a beautiful veldt..no horse sickness, no blue-tongue. 1905 Nature 4 Sept. 502/2 Catarrhal Fever of Sheep: Blue Tongue. 1963 Times 22 Apr. 2/6 Blue tongue, though it exists no nearer to the United Kingdom than Spain and Portugal, is so feared in Australia that it has led to a ban on all livestock imports from Britain. 1966 New Scientist 3 Nov. 250/3 The most serious potential threat is probably from the bluetongue virus to which Merinos are highly susceptible. |
2. An Australian lizard of the genus Tiliqua, belonging to the family Scincidæ.
| 1883 F. McCoy Zool. Victoria I. viii. 15 These Lizards are very sluggish, so that the popular name ‘Sleepy Lizard’ as well as ‘Blue-tongue’ comes to be applied to both. 1904 Daily Chron. 28 Jan. 6/2 The ‘Australian Blue-Tongue’ is a..lizard, with a curious habit of thrusting forth a long tongue as bright as turquoise blue. 1963 E. Worrell Reptiles of Australia 34 The best-known lizards are the Bluetongue group (Tiliqua). |
b. = roustabout 2. Austral. slang.
| 1943 in Baker Austral. Slang (ed. 3) 12. 1955 G. Bowen Wool Away! 157 The poor old rouseabout... Australians sometimes call this hand a ‘blue tongue’. |
Hence blue-tongued a., having a blue tongue; blue-tongued lizard = 2 above.
| 1883 F. McCoy Zool. Victoria I. viii. 13 Cyclodus Gigas... The Northern Blue-tongued Lizard. 1887 Ibid. II. 120 ‘Blue-tongued Lizard’ or ‘Sleepy Lizard’. |