Word.ws English Dictionary

kiang

UK/kiˈæŋ/US/kiˈɑŋ/

kiang noun: a large wild ass, Equus kiang, native to the Tibetan Plateau.

kiang: a large wild ass, Equus kiang, native to the Tibetan Plateau
Image: Dezidor, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

kiang (plural kiangs)

  1. A large wild ass, Equus kiang, native to the Tibetan Plateau.

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Kiang

IPA/kjɑŋ/

Kiang

  1. (obsolete) Obsolete form of Jiang.
  2. (obsolete) Synonym of Yangtze, the chief river of central China.
    • All China was formerly divided by the Chineſe Emperour Xunus into 12 Provinces; afterwards the Emperour Yua, who took upon him the Government after the death of Xunus, about 260 years before the Incarnation of our Saviour, reduced all China into Nine Provinces, which only at that time comprehended...1669 [1665], John Nievhoff, translated by John Ogilby, An Embassy from the Eaſt-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham Emperour of China, London: John Macock, translation of...
    • The series of these great events began in the year 1333, fifteen years before the plague broke out in Europe: they first appeared in China. Here a parching drought, accompanied by famine, commenced in the tract of country watered by the rivers Kiang and Hoai.1888, J. F. C. Hecker, “Causes.-Spread.”, in B. G. Babington, transl., The Black Death and the Dancing Mania, →OCLC, page 24
    Synonyms:
    Yangtze

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Kiang

Kiang (plural Kiangs)

  1. A surname from Chinese.

Synonyms of kiang

Forms of kiang

Noun
pluralkiangs
alternative formkiyang
alternative formkyang
Proper noun
pluralKiangs

Origin of kiang

From Tibetan རྐྱང (rkyang, “wild ass”).

A romanization of various ^((please verify)) Chinese words which lack the palatalization of [k] to [t͡ɕ], which would be rendered jiāng, jiǎng, or jiàng in Mandarin pinyin. Particularly used for Mandarin 江 (Jiāng, “The River”) frequently in specific reference to the Yangtze.

Variant of Jiang.

Words formed from kiang

Phrases with kiang

Questions about kiang

What does kiang mean?
Kiang means a large wild ass, Equus kiang, native to the Tibetan Plateau.
What part of speech is kiang?
Kiang can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce kiang?
Kiang is pronounced /kiˈɑŋ/ (US).
What is the plural of kiang?
The plural of kiang is kiangs.

Words near kiang in the dictionary

  1. kiampong
  2. Kiamusze
  3. Kian
  4. Kiana
  5. Kiandra
  6. kiang
  7. Kiang-su
  8. Kianga
  9. Kiangan
  10. kiangs
  11. Kiangsi

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kiang (page history and authors); Kiang (page history and authors). 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.

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