tang

tang¹ sharp taste; prong of a blade

Etymology

The taste and the prong are inherited from Middle English tange, also tonge,^[2][3] borrowed from Old Norse tangi (“point, spit of land, tang of a knife”).^{[4][5][6][7][8]} Barnhart, Etymonline, the American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster put it more cautiously, as a word from a Scandinavian source akin to the Old Norse one.^{[3][2][9][10]} The OED compares Norwegian tange, Danish tange, Swedish tånge and Faroese tangi, and thinks the word was probably used in northern English long before it reached literature.^[4][5] Etymonline traces the Norse word to Proto-Germanic *tang-, from Proto-Indo-European *denk- (“to bite”), the root of tongs,^[2] and Orel takes tangi as historically the same word as the Germanic word for tongs.^[11] Klein thinks it probably related, and Barnhart and Merriam-Webster perhaps related, to tunga (“tongue”), the Norse cognate of tongue,^[7][3][10] and Etymonline notes that English tongue influenced some of its senses.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The tongue of a snake, which was then thought to be its sting, and the sting of an insect: before 1350, in a Middle English life of St Matthew.^[4][3] Etymonline dates it to the mid-14th century, in the forms tang and tonge.^[2]

Semantic evolution

As in Old Norse, the word was used for other long, pointed parts.^[2] From about 1440, in the Promptorium Parvulorum, it named the extension of a knife, chisel, file or sword blade that is fixed into the handle,^[4][3] though Etymonline dates this sense only to the 1680s.^[2] The same dictionary, and the same year, also record the sense of a sharp, penetrating taste,^[3][5][12] which Etymonline dates to the mid-15th century and compares with the history of piquant, pungent and sharp;^[2] Weekley likewise compares French pointe and piquant,^[13] and the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins sees the idea of a piercing point behind the taste sense.^[14] The figurative sense of a slight touch or trace of something followed in 1593.^[3][2][5] Johnson (1755) defined it as a strong taste, a taste left in the mouth.^[15] The verb, Middle English tangen, to sting or bite, is recorded from about 1400,^[2][4] and later meant to fit with a tang (1566) and to give a taste to (1686).^[4][5] The old sense of a sting survived only in regional English;^[2][4] the dialects also used tang for a prong of a fork, the pin of a buckle and the tine of a stag's horn (1688),^[4][10] and for a strong or peculiar taste, especially an unpleasant one, from Scotland to Kent.^[16] The surgeonfish was called a tang from 1734–35 for its spines,^[2][4] and the 20th century added printers' senses for the waste metal on a stereotype plate or a piece of type.^[4][5] In American campus slang of the 1970s a tang was a person who spoils the mood.^[17]

Timeline

• before 1350 – the tongue of a snake; the sting of an insect.^[4][3]
• c. 1400 – verb, to sting, to pierce.^[4][2]
• c. 1440 – the tang of a blade, fixed into the handle; a sharp taste.^[4][3]
• 1566 – verb, to furnish with a tang.^[4]
• 1593 – a trace or touch of something.^[3]
• 1686 – verb, to give a tang or taste to.^[4]
• 1688 – in dialect, a prong, spike or buckle pin.^[4]
• 1735 – a surgeonfish.^[4]
• 1875 – tangy, having a sharp taste.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A strong, sharp taste or flavour: a tang of lemon in the sauce.^[8][5]
2. A sharp or distinctive smell: the tang of wood smoke in the air.^[8][5]
3. A trace or hint of something.^[8][5]
4. The pointed extension of a blade, as of a knife, file or chisel, that fits into the handle.^[8][10][4]
5. (dialect) A sharp point, such as a prong of a fork or the pin of a buckle.^[10][5][4]
6. A surgeonfish.^[5][4]
7. (dialect) The tongue of a snake; the sting of an insect.^[10][5][4]

Verb

1. To give a tang or sharp flavour to.^[10][5][4]
2. To fit a tool or blade with a tang.^[10][5][4]
3. (dialect) To sting.^[10][5][4]

Word family

• tangy
• tanginess
• tanged
• blue tang

tang² seaweed

Etymology

The seaweed is a word of Norse origin,^{[4][5][10][12]} the same as Norwegian tang, Danish tang, Faroese tang and Swedish tång, seaweed, and close to Old Norse þang (“kelp, seaweed”).^{[4][5][10][7]} The OED adds that the Norn of Orkney and Shetland had the same form as Norwegian.^[4] Klein also compares Dutch tang and German Tang, of the same meaning,^[7] and Klein, Weekley and the Shorter Oxford connect it with tangle.^[7][13][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Large coarse seaweeds, especially wrack of the genus Fucus: 1547, in William Salesbury's Welsh–English dictionary.^[4] The Shorter Oxford also dates it to the mid-16th century,^[5] while Hoad gives the 18th.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The word is chiefly Scottish,^[5] and in the 19th century it was used in Shetland, Orkney, Northumberland, Yorkshire and Lancashire, also in the compound sea-tang.^[16][4] Black tang is bladderwrack, and a tang-fish is a seal.^[5]

Timeline

• 1547 – coarse seaweed, wrack.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (chiefly Scottish) Any of several large, coarse seaweeds, especially a rockweed or wrack of the genus Fucus.^[10][5][4]

tang³ ringing sound

Etymology

The ringing sound is imitative.^{[4][10][5][2][9][18]} The OED suggests that the noun was modelled on ting, its lower vowel standing for a deeper or louder sound,^[4][18] and that some uses of the verb were affected by tang¹;^[4] Weekley gives the Shakespearean "tongue with a tang" in “The Tempest” as one of them.^[13] Klein compares twang.^[7] Hoad calls it only perhaps imitative.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

To strike a bell or the like so that it gives a sharp, loud ringing note: 1556, in John Olde's translation of Gwalther's Antichrist.^[4][10] Etymonline dates the verb to the 1540s.^[2]

Semantic evolution

By about 1600 it also meant to utter something in a ringing tone,^[2] as in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night: "let thy tongue tang arguments of state".^[4][10][5] From 1686, in Bunyan, it was used intransitively for ringing or clanging.^[4][5] The noun, a strong ringing note, is recorded in the OED from 1669, in Etymonline from the 1660s,^[4][2] but Merriam-Webster dates it to 1686.^[10] The Shorter Oxford notes that it could also mean a particular tone of voice, a twang, perhaps influenced by tang¹.^[5] In dialect, to tang was to ring or toll a bell,^[16] and also to make a clanging noise near swarming bees so that they would settle (recorded in Shropshire in 1881).^[4][16]

Timeline

• 1556 – verb, to strike a bell so that it rings sharply.^[4][10]
• before 1616 – to utter with a ringing tone, in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.^[4]
• 1669 – noun, a strong ringing note.^[4]
• 1686 – verb, intransitive, to ring, clang.^[4]
• 1881 – to make a clanging noise to settle swarming bees.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A sharp ringing or twanging sound, as of a struck bell or a plucked string.^[10][5][4]

Verb

1. To make something ring or sound loudly.^[10][5][4]
2. To make a sharp, harsh ringing or clanging sound.^[10][5][4]
3. To utter in a ringing tone.^[10][5][4]
4. (dialect) To make a clanging noise near swarming bees so that they settle.^[5][4]