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tang

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Pronunciation

  • /tæŋ/, /tɑːŋ/[1]

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]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  11. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  12. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  13. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  14. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  16. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  17. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  18. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House