Word.ws English Dictionary

gang

/ˈɡæŋ/US/ˈɡeɪ̯ŋ/

gang verb: to go; walk; proceed. Also the pronunciation spelling of gan.

Verb (1)

gang (third-person singular simple present gangs, present participle ganging, simple past and past participle ganged)

  1. (Northern England, Scotland, intransitive) To go; walk; proceed.
    • (Colin alone) Ah, Colin, thou’rt a prodigal; a thriftless loon thou’st been, that cou’d na’ keep a little pelf to thysall when thou had’st got it; now thou may’st gang in this poor geer to thy live's end, and worse too for aught I can tell; ’faith, mon, ’twas a smeart little bysack of money thou...1772, Richard Cumberland, The Fashionable Lover. A Comedy., act III
    • "And am I to meet my Mary at Moffat? Come away, little, dear, welcome body, thou blessed of heaven, come away, and taste of an auld shepherd's best cheer, and I'll gang foot for foot with you to Moffat, and my auld wife shall gang foot for foot with us too. I tell you, little, blessed, and welcome...1828, James Hogg, Mary Burnet

Noun

gang (plural gangs)

  1. A number going in company; a number of friends or persons associated for a particular purpose.
    • the Gashouse Gang
    • The gang from our office is going out for drinks Friday night.
    1. A group of laborers under one foreman; a squad or workgang.
      • a gang of sailors; a railroad gang; a labor gang or pool.
    2. A criminal group with a common cultural background and identifying features, often associated with a particular section of a city.
      • a youth gang; a neighborhood gang; motorcycle gang.
    3. A group of criminals or alleged criminals who band together for mutual protection and profit.
      • The Winter Hill Gang was quite proficient at murdering rival mobsters in order to take over their rackets.
    4. A group of politicians united in furtherance of a political goal.
      • The Gang of Four was led by Jiang Qing, the fourth wife of Mao Zedong.
      • Not all members of the Gang of Six are consistent in their opposition to filibuster.
    5. (US) A chain gang.
    6. (African-American Vernacular) A term of address for a group, particularly when cautioning them or offering advice.
    7. (Internet, broadly, African-American Vernacular) A term of address for any other person or group of people.
      • The sun isn't real? What are you even talking about, gang?
    8. (broadly, collective) A group of animals.
      • One day they followed a gang of deer that ran in toward the settlements.1915, Noah J. Major, The Pioneers of Morgan County: Memoirs of Noah J. Major, E. J. Hecker, page 331
      • saw Several gangs of Elk on each Side of the river. late in the afternoon we Saw a gang of Buffaloe1805, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition: The journals of John Ordway, May 14, 1804-September 23, 1806, and Charles Floyd, May 14-August 18, 1804
    9. (broadly, collective) A group of turkeys.
      • He was not long in discovering a fine gang of turkeys, and after assuring himself that many of them had taken the direction he desired, undertook to regain the covert by another route.1883, Mary Virginia Terhune, Her wedding day, page 9
      • Nearly every farmer has a "gang" of turkeys.1913 November 6, National Stockman and Farmer, volume 37
  2. A combination of similar tools or implements arranged so as, by acting together, to save time or labor; a set.
    • a gang of saws; a gang of plows; a gang drill; gang milling.
  3. A set; all required for an outfit.
    • a new gang of stays.
  4. (electrics) A number of switches or other electrical devices wired into one unit and covered by one faceplate.
    • an outlet gang box; a double gang switch.
  5. (electrics) A group of wires attached as a bundle.
    • a gang of wires
    • Do a drop for the telephone gang, then another drop for the Internet gang, both through the ceiling of the wiring closet.
  6. (dialectal) A going, journey; a course, path, track.
    • In unploughed Maine he sought the lumberers’ gang / Where from a hundred lakes young rivers sprang1840, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Woodnotes I.3
    • That week was also called the Gang Week, from the Saxon ganger, to go; and the Rogation days were termed the Gang Days.1869, “Papa André”, in Once a Week, page 418/1
  7. (obsolete) An outhouse: an outbuilding used as a lavatory.
    Synonyms:
    outhouse

Verb (2)

gang (third-person singular simple present gangs, present participle ganging, simple past and past participle ganged)

  1. (transitive) To attach similar items together to form a larger unit.
    • Volume controls may be ganged to mode switches to provide maximum output […]1981, Human Engineering Design Criteria for Military Systems, United States. Department of Defense, page 58
    • When cutting the back cleats with the T-guide, first gang them together so all the marks on one side align.1999 May, Rosario Capotosto, “Building a Bookcase”, in Popular Mechanics

Verb (3)

gang (third-person singular simple present gangs, present participle ganging, simple past and past participle ganged)

  1. Synonym of gangbang.
    • He still liked the idea of them all ganging her [...]1970, Richard Allen, Skinhead, New Eng. Lib., →ISBN, page 104; republished as Skinhead, Dean Street Press, 2015, →ISBN
    • […] I’ve learned over the years that there's a thin line to tread to avoid fights or getting “ganged” when rejecting the sexual overtures of incarcerated women.Alarid, Leanne Fiftal (2000), “Sexual Assault and Coercion Among Incarcerated Women Prisoners: Excerpts From Prison Letters”, in The Prison Journal, volume 80, number 4, →DOI
    Synonyms:
    gangbang

Also used as

gang is also the pronunciation spelling of gan.

gang is also the alternative form of gangue.

gang meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

gang in Hindi

a company of persons
समूह samūh
group of criminals who band together for mutual protection
गिरोह giroh

gang in Tamil

கும்பல்

gang in Marathi

a company of persons
टोळी ṭoḷī

gang in Urdu

group of criminals who band together for mutual protection
گِروہ giroh
More languagesFewer languages
gang in Bengali
গ্যাং
gang in Telugu
ముఠా
gang in Punjabi
ਗਿਰੋਹ, ਗੈਂਗ
gang in Gujarati
ધાડું dhāḍũ
gang in Odia
ଗ୍ଯ଼ାଙ୍ଗ୍, ଗ୍ଯ଼ାଙ୍ଗ
gang in Nepali
गिरोह, गङ, गिरोहलाई
gang in Tagalog
gang
gang in Arabic
عِصَابَة ʕiṣāba
gang in Persian
گُروه goruh, دَسْتِه daste
gang in Thai
แก๊ง gɛ́ng, ก๊วน gúuan
gang in Vietnamese
đoàn, tốp, toán, kíp
gang in Myanmar
အသိုက် a.suik, ဂိုဏ်း guin:

Examples of gang in a sentence

  • there sat the gang of toms who owned the neighbor's patio under feline law.2016, Stone Riley, Tales Of Men And Women, page 219:
  • On our way back to the camp the dogs run into a gang of turkeys.1928, William G. Lewis, Lewis Family, page 30:
  • "Tis three gangs done got to-gether, en dey ain' been hunted at all.1905 December, Plummer F. Jones, “Turkey-Hunting in the Old Dominion”, in Field and Stream, volumes 9-10, number 8, CBS Publications, page...
  • Neither Marshall nor Bouterwek makes clear the connection existing between the Gang-days and the Major and Minor Litanies.1895, Frederick Tupper Jr., Anglo-Saxon Dæg-Mæl, Modern Language Association of America, page 229:

All 40 example sentences with gang

Synonyms of gang

Forms of gang

Verb
third-person singular presentgangs
present participleganging
past participleganged
pastganged
alternative formgan
Noun
pluralgangs

Past tense of gang: ganged

Plural of gang: gangs

Origin of gang

From Middle English gangen, from Old English gangan (“to go, walk, turn out”), from Proto-West Germanic *gangan, from Proto-Germanic *ganganą (“to go, walk”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰengʰ- (“to step, walk”). Cognate with Scots gang (“to go on foot, walk”), Swedish gånga (“to walk, go”), Faroese ganga (“to walk”), Icelandic ganga (“to walk, go”), Norwegian Nynorsk ganga (“to walk, go”), Vedic Sanskrit जंहस् (jáṃhas). Ultimately related to etymology 2, which see below.

From Middle English gang, from Old English gang (“a journey; way; passage”), from Proto-West Germanic *gang, from Proto-Germanic *gangaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰongʰ-o-s, from *ǵʰengʰ- (“to step; stride”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Gong, Dutch gang, German Gang, Norwegian gang, Swedish gång, Icelandic gangur, Vedic Sanskrit जंहस् (jáṃhas).

See gan.

Words formed from gang

Phrases with gang

21 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with gang

38 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about gang

What does gang mean?
Gang means to go; walk; proceed.
What is gang in Hindi?
Gang in Hindi is समूह (samūh), गिरोह (giroh). See Gang meaning in Hindi.
How do you use gang in a sentence?
there sat the gang of toms who owned the neighbor's patio under feline law.
What part of speech is gang?
Gang can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce gang?
Gang is pronounced /ˈɡæŋ/.
What is the past tense of gang?
The past tense of gang is ganged.

Words near gang in the dictionary

  1. ganevs
  2. Ganey
  3. Ganeys
  4. ganfer
  5. ganfers
  6. gang
  7. gang bang
  8. gang bangs
  9. gang cask
  10. gang casks
  11. gang member

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gang (page history and authors); gang (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gang (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gang (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gang (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gang (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gang (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-gang.wav.

Cite this entry: “gang.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gang. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.