“Lingual actinomycosis” is an uncommon, suppurative inflammation of lingual mucosa, caused by Actinomyces. Infectious oral lesions can mimic benign or malignant neoplasms and fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is a simple, minimally invasive procedure for the assessment of patients with such lesions. Here, we describe the case of a 28‐year old patient presented with an asymptomatic, submucosal nodular mass of the tongue. Then, FNAC was performed by an experienced fine needle aspiration (FNA) pathologist (*) in our pathology department and the lesion diagnosed with actinomycosis. We also report a detailed review of cases in the literature, with clinical findings.