Login

Green’s Dictionary of Slang

gang v.

(US)

1. to act or move as a group.

1865		V.C. Giles Rags and Hope in Lasswell (1961) 273: We ‘ganged together’ conversing gayly until we reached the willow-clad shore.
1927		(con. 1917) J. Stevens Mattock 163: Doc Makin had his banjo out, and fifteen or twenty of the non-coms were ganged around him.
1932		(con. 1910s) J.T. Farrell Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 129: They ganged into Joseph’s Ice Cream Parlour.
1953		B. Behan Scarperer (1966) 74: A hard chaw that ganged around the quarter.
1976		M. Braly False Starts 170: We ganged around together.
1997		D.H. Edwards The World Don’t Owe Me Nothing 34: Kokomo Arnold playing on the streets in Greenwood. [. . . .] The people was all ganging around him.

2. to attack or kill as part of a gang, to gang up on; thus vtr. to pressurize (see cite 1887).

1887		Cumberland Mercury (NSW) 28 May 4/6: The crowd of Government unemployed shouldn't be ganged by one or two black sheep.
1921		R. Lardner ‘A Frame-Up’ in Coll. Short Stories (1941) 426: Burkey was so fast that Hap thought they’d ganged on him.
1933		G.H. Coxe ‘The Death Club’ in Complete Stories 15 Dec. n.p.: Some outsiders gang me and snatch Dunlap.
1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 193: If the guys had come, they could have ganged the dinges.
1944		C. Himes ‘A Penny for Your Thoughts’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 58: Then four furtive-faced cowboys who’d been waiting for the chance, ganged him.
1952		W.R. Burnett Little Men, Big World 96: You better talk quiet. They always gang you. You haven’t got a chance.
1965		(con. 1930s) R. Wright Lawd Today 211: They ganged you.
1978		R. Caron Go-Boy! 196: Nobody is going to gang you.

3. to engage in multiple, usu. non-consensual, sexual intercourse with one woman as part of a gang.

1933		N. West ‘Miss Lonelyhearts’ in Coll. Works (1975) 225: The guys on the block got sore and took her into the lots one night. About eight of them. They ganged her proper.
1940		J.H. O’Hara Pal Joey 106: We ganged that poor unfortunate mouse.
1967		N.Y. Times Mag. 29 Oct. 27: They get some nice white chick [girl] [...] and they shoot her full of speed. Then they gang her, 14, 15 of them.
1972		C. Bukowski Erections, Ejaculations etc. 44: They ganged her, and ripped and raped and tore.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 76/1: gang v. to subject a person to group rape or sodomy.