tang

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: tăng; IPA^(key): /tʰæŋ/

  • Audio (AU)

    (file)

• (General American) enPR: tāng; IPA^(key): /teɪŋ/
• Rhymes: -æŋ, -eɪŋ

From Middle English tange, variant of tonge (“tongs, fang”), from Old Norse tangi (“pointed metal tool”), perhaps related to Old Norse tunga (“tongue”). But see also Old Dutch tanger (“sharp, tart, pinching”).

This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term. Does this need another split between taste and metal bit? Also eye-dialect for tongue???

tang (plural tangs)

1. A refreshingly sharp aroma or flavor.

   Synonyms: bite, piquancy, spiciness

   Antonyms: blandness, dullness

   • 1904, O. Henry, The Missing Chord:

     The miraculous air, heady with ozone and made memorably sweet by leagues of wild flowerets, gave tang and savour to the breath.

2. A strong or offensive taste; especially, a taste of something extraneous to the thing itself.

   Wine or cider has a tang of the cask.

3. (figuratively) A sharp, specific flavor or tinge.
   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC:

     Such proceedings had a strong tang of tyranny.

   • 1806, Francis Jeffrey, “Memoirs of Dr. Priestley”, in The Edinburgh Review:

     a cant of philosophism, and a tang of party politics

   • 1913, Paul Laurence Dunbar, At Sunset Time:

     What, was it I who bared my heart / Through unrelenting years, / And knew the sting of misery's dart, / The tang of sorrow's tears?

4. A projecting part of an object by means of which it is secured to a handle, or to some other part.
   • 1988, Richard Feynman, Ralph Leighton, "What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character, New York, N.Y., London: W. W. Norton & Company, →OCLC, page 150:

     "And inside the joints, these so-called O-rings are supposed to expand to make a seal—is that right?" ¶ "Yes, sir. In static conditions they should be in direct contact with the tang and clevis and squeezed twenty-thousandths of an inch."

5. The part of a knife, fork, file, or other small instrument, which is inserted into the handle.
6. (firearms) The projecting part of the breech of a musket barrel, by which the barrel is secured to the stock.
   • 1985, Cormac McCarthy, chapter IV, in Blood Meridian […] , →OCLC:

     The rifle carried a vernier sight on the tang […]

7. The part of a sword blade to which the handle is fastened.
   • 1982, Gene Wolfe, chapter 27, in The Sword of the Lictor (The Book of the New Sun; 3), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 200:

     I spent the evening collecting the abandoned nests of birds from a rock face a half league distant, and that night I struck fire from the tang of Terminus Est and boiled the coarse meal (which took a long time to cook, because of the altitude) and ate it.

8. (zoology) Any of a group of saltwater fish from the family Acanthuridae, especially the genus Zebrasoma.

   Synonym: surgeonfish

9. (games) A shuffleboard paddle.

   Coordinate term: biscuit

10. Obsolete form of tongue.
    • 1667, John Lacy, Sauny the Scot: Or, the Taming of the Shrew, Act V,

      Sauny Hear ye, sir; could not ye mistake, and pull her tang out instead of her teeth?

11. (by extension) Anything resembling a tongue in form or position, such as the tongue of a buckle.

Imitative

tang (plural tangs)

1. A sharp, twanging sound; an unpleasant tone; a twang.

tang (third-person singular simple present tangs, present participle tanging, simple past and past participle tanged)

1. (dated, beekeeping) To strike two metal objects together loudly in order to persuade a swarm of honeybees to land so it may be captured by the beekeeper.[1][2]
2. To make a ringing sound; to ring.
   • c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene v]:

     let thy tongue tang arguments of state

Probably of Scandinavian origin; compare Danish tang (“seaweed”), Swedish tång, Icelandic þang

tang (countable and uncountable, plural tangs)

1. (rare) knotted wrack, Ascophyllum nodosum (coarse blackish seaweed)

Clipping of poontang.

tang (countable and uncountable, plural tangs)

1. (countable, vulgar slang) The vagina.
   • 2002, Lynn Breedlove, Godspeed, St. Martin's Griffin, →ISBN, page 9:

     The guys like to look at her tang, because that's how they are […]

2. (uncountable, vulgar slang) sexual intercourse with a woman

• Acanthuridae on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “tang”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “tang”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

• tangbao

• Gant, Gnat, gnat

From English tongue. Cognate with Tok Pisin tang.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtaŋ/
• Hyphenation: tang

tang

1. tongue

• Terry Crowley (2004) Bislama Reference Grammar, Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi press, →ISBN, page 12

• IPA^(key): /taŋ/

tang

1. sea

• A. Schapper, The Papuan Languages of Timor, Alor and Pantar: Volume 1
• The Rosetta Project, Blagar Swadesh List

tang

1. plural of tage

From Old Norse tǫng.

• IPA^(key): /tanɡ/, [tˢɑŋˀ]

tang c (singular definite tangen, plural indefinite tænger)

1. tongs
2. forceps

From Old Norse þang.

• IPA^(key): /tanɡ/, [tˢɑŋˀ]

tang c (singular definite tangen, not used in plural form)

1. seaweed

From Middle Dutch tanghe, from Old Dutch tanga, from Proto-West Germanic *tangu, from Proto-Germanic *tangō.

• IPA^(key): /tɑŋ/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑŋ

tang f (plural tangen, diminutive tangetje n)

1. pliers
2. tongs
3. (especially the diminutive) pincers, tweezers
4. (figuratively) shrew, bitch

• kniptang
• krultang
• nijptang
• pijptang
• waterpomptang

• Negerhollands: tang
• → Indonesian: tang

• From Proto-Norse *ᛊᛏᚨᚾᚷᚢ (*stangu, “bar, rod, stake”) (compare Old Norse stǫng, German Stange), with the meaning change rod > something prickly > prickly ear (of wheat etc) > grain.
• From Finno-Mordovian, in that case cognate to Finnish tankea (“stiff”), Livonian da’nktõ, da’nkti (“strong, healthy”). Original meaning presumably was "something hard, stiff".

tang (genitive tangu, partitive tangu)

1. groat (hulled grain)

• “tang”, in [EKSS] Eesti keele seletav sõnaraamat [Descriptive Dictionary of the Estonian Language] (in Estonian) (online version), Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus (Estonian Language Foundation), 2009
• “tang”, in [ETY] Eesti etümoloogiasõnaraamat [Estonian Etymological Dictionary] (in Estonian) (online version), Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus (Estonian Language Foundation), 2012

• IPA^(key): /taəŋ/
• Hyphenation: tang

tang

1. but

• IPA^(key): [ˈtaŋ]
• Hyphenation: tang
• Homophone: tank

From Dutch tang, from Middle Dutch tanghe, from Old Dutch tanga, from Proto-Germanic *tangō.

tang (first-person possessive tangku, second-person possessive tangmu, third-person possessive tangnya)

1. pliers

tang

1. to use the pliers

Onomatopoeic.

tang (first-person possessive tangku, second-person possessive tangmu, third-person possessive tangnya)

1. the sound of hit can, a metallic sound.

tang (first-person possessive tangku, second-person possessive tangmu, third-person possessive tangnya)

1. Nonstandard form of tank.

tang

1. (colloquial) Clipping of tentang.

• “tang” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

From English tongue.

tang

1. tongue

tang

1. water

tang

1. Nonstandard spelling of tāng.
2. Nonstandard spelling of táng.
3. Nonstandard spelling of tǎng.
4. Nonstandard spelling of tàng.

• Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.

From Malagasy tandraka.

tang

1. tenrec

• Baker, Philip & Hookoomsing, Vinesh Y. 1987. Dictionnaire de créole mauricien. Morisyen – English – Français

tang

1. Alternative form of tonge (“tongs”)

tang ?

1. side

From Old Norse tǫng.

tang f or m (definite singular tanga or tangen, indefinite plural tenger, definite plural tengene)

1. (a pair of) pliers, pincers
2. (a pair of) forceps

• knipetang

• tong (Nynorsk)

From Old Norse þang, compare with German Tang.

tang m or n (definite singular tangen or tanget, uncountable)

1. kelp, seaweed (order Fucales)

• “tang” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

From Old Norse þang n.

tang m (definite singular tangen, uncountable)

1. kelp, seaweed (order Fucales)

• Prior to a 2019 revision, it was also considered grammatically neuter.[1] With this change, definite singular tanget was made non-standard.

• “tang” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

From Urdu تنگ (taṅg), from Persian [Term?].

• IPA^(key): /taŋɡ/, /taŋ/

tang (invariable, Perso-Arabic spelling تنگ)

1. narrow
2. troubled

• Liljegren, Henrik, Haider, Naseem (2011) Palula Vocabulary (FLI Language and Culture Series; 7)‎, Islamabad, Pakistan: Forum for Language Initiatives, →ISBN

From Malagasy tandraka.

tang

1. tenrec

• Danielle D’Offay et Guy Lionnet, Diksyonner Kreol - Franse / Dictionnaire Créole Seychellois - Français

Cognate with Thai ทาง (taang), Lao ທາງ (thāng), Northern Thai ᨴᩤ᩠ᨦ, Lü ᦑᦱᧂ (taang), Shan တၢင်း (táang).

• IPA^(key): /taːŋ⁵⁵/

tang

1. road, path, way

From English tongue.

tang

1. tongue

From English tank.

tang

1. tank

From English tongue.

tang

1. (anatomy) tongue

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [taːŋ˧˧]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [taːŋ˧˧]
• (Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA^(key): [taːŋ˧˧]

Sino-Vietnamese word from 喪.

tang

Vietnamese funeral flag (cờ tang)

1. a series of events that encompasses a funeral, a burial or cremation, and a period of mourning spanning up to 3 years after the lunar date of death

   để tang

   to hold a public funeral, then stay in mourning (by watching your clothing choices and avoiding other taboos)

   đại tang

   mourning in 3 years

   (literally, “greater mourning”)

   tiểu tang

   mourning in 1 year or less

   (literally, “lesser mourning”)

   mãn/xả tang

   to officially end mourning

   hết tang

   the mourning (has) ended

   đám tang

   a funeral

   Nhà đang có tang.

   The family is in mourning.

   Chưa hết tang mẹ.

   They haven't officially ended mourning their mother.

   đeo băng tang

   to wear a funeral headband

   đội khăn tang

   to wear a funeral headscarf

From English tangent.

tang

1. (trigonometry) tangent

• tan
• côtang
• tiếp tuyến

tang

1. (music) shell (body of a drum)

   Trống thủng còn tang.

   The drum was busted, leaving only the shell.

tang

1. (fossil word) evidence of wrongdoing

   Đốt đi cho mất tang.

   Light it on fire to hide the evidence.

This sense only occurs in some compound words.

tang

1. (informal) something or someone insignificant

   Cái tang thuốc này hút nặng lắm.

   Smoking this little thing packs a punch.

   Tang ấy thì biết làm ăn gì.

   That guy hasn't a clue how to make a living.

Sino-Vietnamese word from 桑

tang

1. (fossil word) mulberry
2. (fossil word) silkworm

This sense only occurs in some compound words.

• Ca-tang
• tang tảng

• "tang" in Hồ Ngọc Đức, Free Vietnamese Dictionary Project (details)

Sino-Vietnamese word from 鐺

tang

1. Buddhist copper instrument