gang n.1
1. (orig. US, also ging) any social group (with no criminal overtones).
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Invectiues Capitane Allexander Montgomeree and Pollvart in Parkinson (Poems) (2000) II line 172: All the ghaistis of our gang that dwellis thair doun. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Merry Wives of Windsor IV ii: O you panderly rascals! there’s a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy against me. | |
| Praise of the Red Herring 10: Hearing of the gangs of good fellowes, that hustled and bustled thither. | |
| Belman of London B4: This is a Ging of good fellowes in whom there is more brother-hood: this is a Crew that is not a Damned Crew [...] but this is the Ragged Regiment: Villaines they are by birth. | |
| Spanish Gypsy III i: Welcome, poet, to our ging! | |
| Covent-Garden Weeded III i: I will not believe ’tis Religon in any of the gang of ’em, but mere wilful affectation. | |
| ‘The Committee of Safety’ Rump Poems and Songs (1662) ii 101: Thompson a Person of noted affection [...] Yet is one of this Gang for the Peoples correction. | |
| Maronides (1678) VI 109: Go on, Tom Fool, and view the Gang / From when your high-born Worship sprang. | |
| ‘Animadversions on the Lady Marquess’ in Roxburghe Ballads (1885) V:1 67: The Lady Marquess and her gang are most in favour seen. | |
| Careless Husband I i: One of Lord Foppington’s Gang. | |
| York Spy 41: They are a gang of common Strumpets. | |
| Life of Thomas Neaves 11: He got into the Company of loose idle disorderly Persons, and fatally link’d himself into their Gang. | |
| Letter Writers III ii: I dare not trust my self even in my own House without you, now you have provok’d the Gang. | |
| Peregrine Pickle (1964) 368: The noise increased to a surprising clamour, not only of the gang, but likewise of almost all the spectators. | |
| Oxonian in Town I ii: With what joy the scoundrels lifted me in their gang! | |
| Thraliana i Mar. 1 371: We are not Friends, but Barretti [sic] is a Man of great & valuable Powers, Friend or Foe; & like the Highwaymen one must be true to the Gang. | |
| Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Gang, a company of men, a body of sailors, a knot of thieves, pickpockets. | |
| ‘Complimentary Epistle to James Bruce’ Works (1794) II 479: Gone to make room [...] For gangs of lazy Spaniards. | |
| ‘The Village Gang’ Cumberland Ballads (1805) 74: There’s sec a gang in our town, / The deevil cannot wrang them. | |
| Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785]. | |
| Merry Song Called Love in a Barn 6: A gang of Gypsies us’d to ly, / within the barn all night. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Major Downing (1834) 136: He got a gang of gentlemen yesterday to go with him. | |
| Sam Slick in England I 264: The whole gang of them, from the Butler that dresses in the same clothes as his master, to Boots. | |
| Vocabulum 36: gang Company; squad; mob. | |
| Ford County Globe 29 Jan. in Why the West was Wild 297: Some of the ‘boys’ in direct violation of the City Ordnance, carry firearms on our streets [...] Is it because they belong to the ‘gang,’ or because they intend to harm none but anti-gang men? | |
| ‘The Face on the Bar-room Floor’ n.p.: When I had cash to treat the gang this hand was never slow. | |
| George’s Mother (2001) 75: This is th’ hang-out fer a great gang [...] They’re a great crowd, I tell yeh. | |
| Lord Jim 78: I wasn’t given half a chance – with a gang like that. | |
| ‘The Defence of Strikerville’ in From First To Last (1954) 12: The rest of the gang was no better off. | |
| Gullible’s Travels 81: Nobody talked to us only the waiters, but we could look as much as we liked and it was sport tryin’ to guess the names o’ the gang at the next table. | |
| Main Stem 82: I want you fellows to met some of the gang. | |
| ‘Gus Builds the Stack’ in Me And Gus (1977) 74: When I got back, Gus was explaining to all the gang how it happened. | |
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | ‘Pinnicle’ in Jamaica Dialect Verses 46: Mass John came back from pinnicle / Yuh want see him beard Muma [...] An’ start gwan like him mad. / Black up har two yeye, bus har nose [...] Soh tell she neally dead, cause she hooden / Goh jine him Rasta gang. | |
| Really the Blues 120: I brought the record home to play for the gang. | |
 | My Name is Michael Sibley (2000) 86: Oh, my God, the whole gang’s here. | |
| (con. 1930s) Lawd Today 38: Maybe he would walk over to the poolhall and hear what the old gang was saying. | |
| Fantastic Four Annual 58: I’m mighty glad to see you, gang. | |
| Songlines 30: ‘The gang’s all here,’ said Arkady. | |
| Guardian Rev. 9 Oct. 6: Admittedly I was the first of the gang to get published. | |
| Kill Your Darlings 283: A few of the Granta gang whose reputations were still in credit. |
2. (US) a large amount of anything.
| Man’s Grim Justice 78: A flock of black dresses [and] a gang of new bonnets. | |
| ‘I Learned About Love From Her’ 🎵 There’s a gang of things I didn’t learn to do / When I learned about love from her. | |
| Really the Blues 67: One of them had a gang of beautiful evening gowns but couldn’t sing a lick. | |
| In For Life 181: The fellows produced a gang of dollars they had squirreled away somehow. | |
| Bourbon Street Black 205: Squares are boresome. [...] They’re like a gang of Coca Cola bottles lyin’ around on the side of the road. | |
| Do or Die (1992) 34: He give them a coupla hundred thousand and he get us a gang of dope. | |
| Westsiders 202: I was doing a gang of looting. All of it got lost, but I got a gang of shit. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
see separate entries.
see gang-splash
see separate entries.
see separate entries.
(US) a sexual orgy or gang rape.
| (con. 1890s) Sportin’ House 253: Alice [...] was making trouble in a gang roll in her room with some Army officers [HDAS]. |
see gang-shag n.
see separate entries.
see gang-shag n.
1. (Aus./N.Z., also gang-bash, gang-slash) a heterosexual orgy or multiple rape; also as v.
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Aus. Lang. (2nd edn). | |
| Trip Beyond 46: Who needed a gang splash? I'd dated dozens of beautiful chicks. I didn't need a prostitute, especially with two eager onlookers in the back seat. | |
| Queens’ Vernacular 92: gang-bang [-shack, -shag, -shay (fr -cher in Fr coucher = to lay down) -splash] [...] 2. (camp) homosexual orgy. | |
| Faithless Mirror 294: She hates you. Because you got Cal busted. She was screaming in Fuzzie's that you got the bikers to gang-splash her. | |
![[Can]](/static/img/flags/can.png "Canada") | Prison Doctor 95: In teenage jargon this is known as a gang splash. Usually the offenders are wild, irresponsible, beer-drinking hoodlums, very aggressive in gangs. They haunt the local parks or pick up girls in their cars. | |
| (ed.) Why Men Rape 71: We’d end up taking one of these girls out and laying her and then we’d set ’em up on a ‘gang splash’ with a group of guys. | |
| Dict. of Obscenity etc. | |
| Macquarie Dict. 🌐 gang bang noun an occasion on which a number of males have sexual intercourse with one female. Also, gangie, gang slash, gang splash. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 84: gangie/gangbang/gangbash/gangsplash Serial female rape. ANZ. |
2. (US gay/prison) a homosexual rape or orgy.
| Sex & Teenage Revolution 131: There the slight dark-haired boy was a victim of a ‘gang splash.’ Six men at one of these ‘parties’ took their turn at the youth. | |
| Queens’ Vernacular 155: If a stray lamb finds himself surrounded by a pack of givers [...] he will be given a gang-splash. | |
| Cong. Record 12268/1: John’s first day in the population found him cornered in a storeroom where he was the object of a gang-splash. | |
| Gay Sl. Dict. 🌐 short-arm heist: the act of rape. Synonyms:gang-bang; gang-splash; jump. |
3. (Aus.) to administer a beating as a group.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 76/1: gang bash (also gang bang) n. = PWK. | |
| Old Scores [ebook] [T]he other drivers had gang-bashed him, driven him off-site with boots to the arse. |