Word.ws English Dictionary

vang

vang verb: to take; undertake for.

Verb (1)

vang (third-person singular simple present vangs, present participle vanging, simple past and past participle vanged)

  1. (dialectal, obsolete) To take; undertake for.
  2. (dialectal) To undertake for at the baptismal font; be godfather or godmother to.

Noun

vang (plural vangs)

  1. A line extended down from the end of a gaff to regulate its position.
    • Having the vang and the Cunningham in the right spot can be beneficial.2013, Frank Bethwaite, Fast Handling Technique, page 141
    Synonyms:
    fang

Verb (2)

vang (third-person singular simple present vangs, present participle vanging, simple past and past participle vanged)

  1. To flatten the sail and regulate its position with such a line.
    • On a catamaran, the curved track has enough beam to allow the mainsheet to vang the boom throughout its entire arc.1998 February, Yachting, page 62
    • The Patented Hoyt Jib Boom adds to offwind speed by vanging the jib and acting as a built in whisker pole.1999 January, Cruising World, volume 25, number 1, page 80

Proper noun capitalized: Vang

Vang (plural Vangs)

  1. A surname from the North Germanic languages
  2. A surname from Danish, Norwegian, or Swedish
  3. A surname from White Hmong
  4. A surname from Hmong
  5. A surname from Hmong

Synonyms of vang

Forms of vang

Verb
third-person singular presentvangs
present participlevanging
past participlevanged
pastvanged
alternative formfank
alternative formfang
Noun
pluralvangs
Proper noun
pluralVangs

Origin of vang

From Middle English vangen, southern variant of fangen (“to seize, catch”), from Old English fōn (“to take, grasp, seize, catch, capture, make prisoner, receive, accept, assume, undertake, meet with, encounter”), and Old Norse fanga (“to fetch, capture”), both from Proto-Germanic *fanhaną, *fangōną (“to catch, capture”), from Proto-Indo-European *ph₂ḱ- (“to fasten, place”). Cognate with West Frisian fange (“to catch”), Dutch vangen (“to catch”), German fangen (“to catch”), Danish fange (“to catch”). More at fang.

From Dutch vang, from vangen (“to catch”), under influence of earlier English fang. Ultimately a doublet of Etymology 1 above.

* As a North Germanic surname, from derivatives of Old Norse vangr (“field”) (such as modern Swedish vång). * As a Jewish surname, spelling variant of Wang. * As a Hmongic surname, from White Hmong Vaj, White Hmong Vaaj, or Khmer វ៉ាង (vaang).

Phrases with vang

Questions about vang

What does vang mean?
Vang means to take; undertake for.
What part of speech is vang?
Vang can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
What is the past tense of vang?
The past tense of vang is vanged.

Words near vang in the dictionary

  1. Vanfleets
  2. Vanfossen
  3. Vanfossens
  4. vanful
  5. vanfuls
  6. vang
  7. Vang Vieng
  8. vanga
  9. vangas
  10. Vange
  11. vanged

Source and license

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