spang

• IPA^(key): /spæŋ/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• Rhymes: -æŋ

From Middle English spang (“a small piece of ornamental metal; spangle; small ornament; a bowl or cup”), likely from Middle Dutch spange (“buckle, clasp”) or Old English spang (“buckle, clasp”).

This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

spang (plural spangs)

1. (obsolete) A shiny ornament or object; a spangle
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 45:

     With glittering spangs that did like starres appeare.

• spangle

spang (third-person singular simple present spangs, present participle spanging, simple past and past participle spanged)

1. To set with bright points: star or spangle.
2. To hitch; fasten.

Onomatopoeic.

spang (third-person singular simple present spangs, present participle spanging, simple past and past participle spanged)

1. (intransitive, of a flying object such as a bullet) To strike or ricochet with a loud report
   • 1895 October, Stephen Crane, chapter XVIII, in The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 173:

     Occasional bullets buzzed in the air and spanged into tree trunks.

   • 1918, Zane Grey, The U.P. Trail:

     How clear, sweet, spanging the hammer blows!

spang (not comparable)

1. (dated) Suddenly; slap, smack.
   • 1936, Djuna Barnes, Nightwood, Faber & Faber, published 2007, page 22:

     And I didn't stop until I found myself spang in the middle of the Musée de Cluny, clutching the rack.

Uncertain. Cognate with Scots spang, and possibly related to English spank.

spang (third-person singular simple present spangs, present participle spanging, simple past and past participle spanged)

1. (intransitive, dialect, UK, Scotland) To leap; spring.
   • a. 1758, Allan Ramsay, epistle to Robert Yarde

     But when they spang o'er reason's fence, / We smart for't at our own expense.

2. (transitive, dialect, UK, Scotland) To cause to spring; set forcibly in motion; throw with violence.

spang (plural spangs)

1. (Scotland) A bound or spring; a leap.
   • 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter I, in Rob Roy. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 13:

     Set roast-beef and pudding on the opposite side o' the pit o' Tophet, and an Englishman will mak a spang at it—[…]

See span

spang (plural spangs)

1. (Scotland) A span.

• “spang”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “spang”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• Pangs, pangs