Green’s Dictionary of Slang

gang n.1

1. (orig. US, also ging) any social group (with no criminal overtones).

[Scot]A. Montgomerie Invectiues Capitane Allexander Montgomeree and Pollvart in Parkinson (Poems) (2000) II line 172: All the ghaistis of our gang that dwellis thair doun.
[UK]Shakespeare Merry Wives of Windsor IV ii: O you panderly rascals! there’s a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy against me.
[UK]Nashe Praise of the Red Herring 10: Hearing of the gangs of good fellowes, that hustled and bustled thither.
[UK]Dekker 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.
[UK]Middleton & Rowley Spanish Gypsy III i: Welcome, poet, to our ging!
[UK]R. Brome Covent-Garden Weeded III i: I will not believe ’tis Religon in any of the gang of ’em, but mere wilful affectation.
[UK] ‘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.
[UK]J. Phillips Maronides (1678) VI 109: Go on, Tom Fool, and view the Gang / From when your high-born Worship sprang.
[UK] ‘Animadversions on the Lady Marquess’ in Ebsworth Roxburghe Ballads (1885) V:1 67: The Lady Marquess and her gang are most in favour seen.
[UK]Cibber Careless Husband I i: One of Lord Foppington’s Gang.
[UK]W. King York Spy 41: They are a gang of common Strumpets.
[UK]Life of Thomas Neaves 11: He got into the Company of loose idle disorderly Persons, and fatally link’d himself into their Gang.
[UK]Fielding Letter Writers III ii: I dare not trust my self even in my own House without you, now you have provok’d the Gang.
[UK]Smollett Peregrine Pickle (1964) 368: The noise increased to a surprising clamour, not only of the gang, but likewise of almost all the spectators.
[UK]G. Colman Oxonian in Town I ii: With what joy the scoundrels lifted me in their gang!
[UK]Thrale 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.
[UK]Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Gang, a company of men, a body of sailors, a knot of thieves, pickpockets.
[UK]‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Complimentary Epistle to James Bruce’ Works (1794) II 479: Gone to make room [...] For gangs of lazy Spaniards.
[UK]R. Anderson ‘The Village Gang’ Cumberland Ballads (1805) 74: There’s sec a gang in our town, / The deevil cannot wrang them.
[UK]Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
[UK]Merry Song Called Love in a Barn 6: A gang of Gypsies us’d to ly, / within the barn all night.
[US]S. Smith Major Downing (1834) 136: He got a gang of gentlemen yesterday to go with him.
[US]T. Haliburton 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.
[US]Matsell Vocabulum 36: gang Company; squad; mob.
[US]Ford County Globe 29 Jan. in Miller & Snell 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?
[US]H.A. D’Arcy ‘The Face on the Bar-room Floor’ n.p.: When I had cash to treat the gang this hand was never slow.
[UK]Mirror of Life 11 Apr. 3/4: Despite the fact that Corbett is one of the most profitable cards in the business [...] he is not popular with ‘the gang.’ Sullivan’s admirers do not like him.
[US]S. Crane George’s Mother (2001) 75: This is th’ hang-out fer a great gang [...] They’re a great crowd, I tell yeh.
[UK]J. Conrad Lord Jim 78: I wasn’t given half a chance – with a gang like that.
[US]D. Runyon ‘The Defence of Strikerville’ in From First To Last (1954) 12: The rest of the gang was no better off.
[US]R. Lardner 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.
[US]W. Edge Main Stem 82: I want you fellows to met some of the gang.
[UK]F. Anthony ‘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]L. Bennett ‘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.
[US]Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 120: I brought the record home to play for the gang.
J. Bingham My Name is Michael Sibley (2000) 86: Oh, my God, the whole gang’s here.
[US](con. 1930s) R. Wright Lawd Today 38: Maybe he would walk over to the poolhall and hear what the old gang was saying.
[US]Fantastic Four Annual 58: I’m mighty glad to see you, gang.
[UK]B. Chatwin Songlines 30: ‘The gang’s all here,’ said Arkady.
[UK]Guardian Rev. 9 Oct. 6: Admittedly I was the first of the gang to get published.
[UK]T. Blacker Kill Your Darlings 283: A few of the Granta gang whose reputations were still in credit.

2. (US) a large amount of anything.

[US]J. Callahan Man’s Grim Justice 78: A flock of black dresses [and] a gang of new bonnets.
[US]Cab Calloway ‘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.
[US]Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 67: One of them had a gang of beautiful evening gowns but couldn’t sing a lick.
[US]T. Runyon In For Life 181: The fellows produced a gang of dollars they had squirreled away somehow.
[US]Buerkle & Barker Bourbon Street Black 205: Squares are boresome. [...] They’re like a gang of Coca Cola bottles lyin’ around on the side of the road.
[US]L. Bing Do or Die (1992) 34: He give them a coupla hundred thousand and he get us a gang of dope.
[US]W. Shaw 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

gangbang/banger/banging

see separate entries.

gangbuster(s)

see separate entries.

gangfuck/fucker

see separate entries.

gang roll (n.) [roll v. (1)]

(US) a sexual orgy or gang rape.

(con. 1890s) S. Longstreet Sportin’ House 253: Alice [...] was making trouble in a gang roll in her room with some Army officers [HDAS].
gang-shag

see separate entries.

gang-splash (n.) [SE splash, i.e. of bodily fluids]

1. (Aus./N.Z., also gang-bash, gang-slash) a heterosexual orgy or multiple rape; also as v.

[Aus]Baker Aus. Lang. (2nd edn).
[US]Ruud & Wagner 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.
[US]B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 92: gang-bang [-shack, -shag, -shay (fr -cher in Fr coucher = to lay down) -splash] [...] 2. (camp) homosexual orgy.
[US]J. Reid 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]G. Richmond 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.
[US]D. Jackson (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.
[UK]J. McDonald Dict. of Obscenity etc.
[Aus]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]McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 84: gangie/gangbang/gangbash/gangsplash Serial female rape. ANZ.

2. (US gay/prison) a homosexual rape or orgy.

[US]S. Holt 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.
[US]B. Rodgers 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.
[US]R.O. Scott 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.

[NZ]D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 76/1: gang bash (also gang bang) n. = PWK.
[Aus]D. Whish-Wilson Old Scores [ebook] [T]he other drivers had gang-bashed him, driven him off-site with boots to the arse.