fang n.
1. a tooth.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Grobianus 14: Let ev’ry Tooth in sable Pomp appear: Those Fangs, bespeckled like some Leopard’s Skin. | |
| Kentish Gaz. 16 Nov. 3/3: Close gripe ’em in thy knotted fang. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | ‘Larry’s Stiff’ Luke Caffrey’s Gost 7: She taut he would sqeeze her to deth, / So darted her fangs in his throttle. | |
| Yankey in England 71: There’s One will snatch me from your fangs. Death! | |
| Leeds Intelligencer 27 Nov. 3/5: No person, herefater afflicted with the tooth-ache, need hesitate for one moment to have the torturing fang removed. | |
| Oliver Twist (1966) 417: He disclosed among his toothless gums a few such fangs as should have been a dog’s or rat’s. | |
| Handy Andy 57: When he ran to his mother’s cabin to escape from the fangs of Dick Dawson, there was no one within. | |
| Adventures of Philip (1899) 377: Just open your mouth [...] What fangs! what a big one! | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Out Back 237: He got the toot in me fisht, ‘And there ut is,’ continued Mrs. Murphy, laying an immense fang on the table. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 14 Feb. 11/3: I’m a fang-fixing expert named Ford / [...] / My profession is tending your teeth. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 14 Sept. 25/4: Though he is daily blackening the business all seem afraid of his fangs. | |
| Ulysses 363: Three cheers for the sister-in-law he hawked about, three fangs in her mouth. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | World to Win 73: Willie nodded dourly, baring his tobacco-fouled fangs in a formal smile. | |
| Laughing Gas n.p.: These two fang-wrenchers shared a common waiting room. | |
| Sudden Takes the Trail 46: The thin lips drawn back from the tobacco-stained fangs were animal-like in their savagery. | |
| Scrambled Yeggs 44: I asked him who the man with the fangs was and he knew you, so I asked him to introduce me. | |
| letter 11 Mar. in Proud Highway (1997) 443: Your concepts have lost their fangs – for me, anyway. | |
| Hy Lit’s Unbelievable Dict. of Hip Words 9: Kep your chops chipper and you’ll have boss looking fangs. | |
| Choirboys (1976) 253: Tammy smiled, showing her decaying fangs. | |
| (con. 1959) Up the Cross 132: Jeffrey had a bung left eye [...] It also looked like he’d lost a fang or two. | |
| Songlines 83: Get your fucking fangs into that steak! | |
| Bend for Home 50: The long fang, yellow and topped with black, sat in a saucer. | |
| Outlaws (ms.) 6: It’s purely and only because of his teeth. Our Ratter’s nickname is down to his fangs. | |
| Man-Eating Typewriter 44: The cheet [i.e. a dummy] was disgusting: dead opals, chattering fangs, googly gendarme goggles [...] black famblers. |
2. a finger.
| Gypsey of the Glen I iii: Be charitable, and put your fangs into your bungs, and throw us a croaker – All of us poor cripples. |
3. (Aus.) one who seeks out loans [prior version of fang artist n.1 (1)].
| Sun. Times (Perth) 11 Aug. 4/8: The played-out pug, the fence, the fang, / The buttoners, touts and runners. |
4. (US black/jazz) in pl., the lips; thus, in fig. use, the equivalent of chops n.1 (3)
| Down Beat 6 Feb. 31: The trumpet section includes [...] all the guys with — to use the hip vernacular — they’re saying ‘fangs’ now instead of chops. |
5. the penis; thus bury the fang, to have sexual intercourse.
| Argot in DAUS (1993) 80: fang [...] The penis. ‘He hit her with the fang.’ ‘First thing I do when I get out is bury the fang.’. |
In compounds
see separate entries.
(Aus.) a dentist.
| Sun. Times (Perth) 25 Oct. 4/8: He must get some lodgers new for Bailey’s booby / While inducing Mr Fang to pull his teeth. | |
| Sun (Kalgoorlie, WA) 6 Sept. 4/7: Professor Fang gouged out their grinders. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 9 Aug. 8/8: [headline] Wherever the Fang-Men Fight. The dentists of Victoria have offered their services to the Ministry of Defence. | |
| I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 233/1: fang carpenter (gum digger, gum puncher) – dentist. | |
| Big Smoke 27: The old man, the pensioned-off fang carpenter in the next room. | |
| Traveller’s Tool 107: The Sheiks go in for bigamy in a big way and none of the sheilahs seem to mind the set-up, so long as they’ve got a Harrods charge card, a colour TV in the back of the limmo and a new set of gold choppers from some Harley Road fang-bandit. | |
 | Macquarie Bk. Sl. 82/1: fang carpenter n. a dentist. Also, fang farrier. | |
| Hartford Courant (CT) sect. D 5 Sept. 27/3: G’Day from Down Under [...] Take more than a passing insult [...] to get me narkie enough to [...] send you to the fang merchant for some new crockery. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 76: fang bosun/carpenter Dentist. Originally in ANZ navy and army respectively, C20. | |
| Get Rich Quick Club 11: ‘I had an appointment at the fang carpenter to adjust my railway tracks.’ Australians speak English, but sometimes it’s hard to tel. |
a dental surgery.
| DSUE (1984) 378/2: from ca. 1850. |
a dental surgery.
| Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 113: I’ll let me teeth rot in me skull before I go to the fang factory next. |
a dentist.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. | |
| Und. Speaks. | |
| DSUE (1984) 378/2: from ca. 1850. |
(Aus.) usu. milit., a dentist.
| Service Slang 31: fang farrier. Dentist. | |
| Dly News (Perth) 20 Aug. 8/7: She bobbed up again in a dentist’s surgery on Wednesday (August 18 in case you care), when she was standing her watch in the surgery of a local fang farrier. | |
| Journey Among Men 82: ‘You haven’t got a fang-farrier with you, have you?’. | |
| Canberra Times (ACT) 5 Mar. 1/4: When she graduates she will be commissioned as a Lieutenant (dental), and probably become known, as are other naval dentists, as a ‘fang farrier’. | |
| Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 137: After the fang farrier fixed his chompers Willie The Shoe was another man. |
a dentist.
| Tacoma Times (WA) 17 July 4/4: Listen, kid, I’ve got a date with a fang-hustler. He says he’s got to jerk two pearls out of my winning smile. |
criticism, esp. a critical article.
| letter 31 Jan. in Proud Highway (1997) 437: The Observer is down on me for a fang-job I did on Congress. |
(US Und.) a dentist.
| Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl. |
In phrases
(Aus.) in speech, in speaking.
| Sun. Times (Perth) 2 June 4/8: I’m ignorant, but fluent on the fang, / An’ seein’ ’e was gullible an’ green, / I pitched ’im all the poetry an’ ’slang / I’ve swallered in the Sydney ‘Bullerteen’. |
1. to demand a loan or favour.
| Digger Dialects 22: fangs (n.) — ‘To put in the fangs’ — to demand money, etc. | |
| (con. WWI) Gloss. of Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: put the fangs in. To request a favour or loan. | |
| Truth (Brisbane) 18 July 22/6: A week later John put the fangs into Edgar for the loan of 5/- but Edgar said, ‘I won’t lend it to you. You've done your dash’. | |
| Dly Examiner (Grafton, NSW) 16 July 4/2: Charged With Unlawfully Begging Alms [...] I saw a couple of ‘traps’ and one was a bit like you, too. I was just going to put the fangs into them. | |
| Aus. Lang. |
2. to pressurize, to blackmail.
| Aus. Lang. | |
| Aussie Eng. (1966) 39: ‘Putting the bite on’ somebody is also ‘putting the fangs in’. |