Word.ws English Dictionary

tanga

tanga noun: any of various former Asian coins, including: a coin of Portuguese India worth one tenth of a rupee; a gold coin of India issued by various Muslim rulers; a silver coin of India, also issued by Muslim rulers; and a former silver coin of Tibet.

Noun (1)

tanga (plural tangas)

  1. (historical) Any of various former Asian coins, including: a coin of Portuguese India worth one tenth of a rupee; a gold coin of India issued by various Muslim rulers; a silver coin of India, also issued by Muslim rulers; and a former silver coin of Tibet.
    • The larines are woorth by just value basaruchies 93 and 3 fourth parts, and 4 larines make a seraphine of siluer, which is 5 tangas of good money, and these also haue serafagion of 6, 7, 8, 10, vntil 16, by the 100, for when the ships depart for the North, to say, for Chaul, Diu, Cambaia, or...1810, Richard Haklvyt, Hakluyt's Collection of the Early Voyages, Travels, and DIscoveries of the English Nation- Volume 2, page 410
    • The first and largest item is, the purchase of a wife, 25 rupees. Culinary and other utensils.--Bedding, 6 rupees; antimony for the lady's eyes, 3 tangas : an iron boiler, 2 rupees; a wooden bowl and spoons, 3 tangas; ....1841, The Literary Gazette and Journal of the Belles Lettres, page 136

Noun (2)

tanga (plural tangas)

  1. A pair of tanga briefs.

Proper noun capitalized: Tanga

Tanga

  1. A city and port, the capital of the Tanga Region, Tanzania.

Examples of tanga in a sentence

  • The prices range from 120 tangas = Rupees 25 to 400 tangas = Rupees 80.1875, Report of a Mission to Yarkund in 1873, under command of Sir T[homas] D. Forsyth, page 73:
  • Three-sevenths, or 300,000 tangas (100,000 Kabul rupees) were remitted to the Amir as tribute, whilst the remaining sum, 400,000 tangas (Rs. 133,333), was retained by the wali for his own expenses.1996, Jonathan L. Lee, The "Ancient Supremacy":, →ISBN:
  • The Samarkand tangas were initially 916 carats, and then rose to 960 carats.2003, Ahmad Hasan Dani, Vadim Mikhaĭlovich Masson, History of Civilizations of Central Asia, →ISBN:

Forms of tanga

pluraltangas

Origin of tanga

From Portuguese tanga, from Kimbundu tanga or ntanga (“coarse cloth; loincloth”).

Derived from Swahili tanga (“sail”), from Proto-Sabaki *-canga, from Proto-Bantu *-cànga.

Phrases with tanga

Questions about tanga

What does tanga mean?
Tanga means any of various former Asian coins, including: a coin of Portuguese India worth one tenth of a rupee; a gold coin of India issued by various Muslim rulers; a silver coin of India, also issued by Muslim rulers; and a former silver coin of Tibet.
How do you use tanga in a sentence?
The prices range from 120 tangas = Rupees 25 to 400 tangas = Rupees 80.
What part of speech is tanga?
Tanga can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of tanga?
The plural of tanga is tangas.

Words near tanga in the dictionary

  1. tang hoon
  2. tang ping
  3. Tang Soo Do
  4. Tang-shan
  5. Tang-yang
  6. tanga
  7. tanga briefs
  8. Tangail District
  9. Tangalan
  10. Tangaloa
  11. Tangaloas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tanga (page history and authors); Tanga (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: “tanga.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tanga. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.