Richard FowlerVilma BarrAlbert Kosloff
Synonyms
Examples of gang in a Sentence
Stefano Pozzebon, CNN, 24 Sep. 2023
Diane Lane, Michael Paré, Amy Madigan, Rick Moranis and Willem Dafoe lead the cast in a story of warring motorcycle gangs, a kidnapped singer and the loner who is determined to bring her back.
—Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times, 22 Sep. 2023
Haitians fight back against gangs, drawing support — and worry
The U.N. mission from 2004 to 2017 achieved mixed results against Haiti’s armed gangs.
—Amanda Coletta, Washington Post, 20 Sep. 2023
Among other efforts, the group periodically organizes campaigns known as Season of Peace, which calls on gangs not to engage in shootings.
—David Hernandez, San Diego Union-Tribune, 16 Sep. 2023
The instability, poor governance, corruption and mafia-style politicking, including a network of people-smuggling gangs, have all conspired to make this tragedy.
—Alex Crawford, NBC News, 15 Sep. 2023
Now, as then, there is a social and class element, given the popularity of these dogs in poorer neighborhoods, often with members of gangs.
—Mark Landler, New York Times, 15 Sep. 2023
All of the suspects were later charged under Georgia’s criminal street gang laws, Cpl. Juan Madiedo with Gwinnett police said.
—Chris Joyner, ajc, 15 Sep. 2023
This had morphed into the chola aesthetic of my teens in ’90s Southern California—a look that over time became more closely associated with gang culture, with its gold hoops, teased hair, baggy pants, and thick black eyeliner.
—Alejandra Campoverdi, Vogue, 15 Sep. 2023
Jack Tamisiea, Scientific American, 23 Feb. 2022
Above all, the event serves as a venue for face-to-face connections among collectors – a place to gang together for wrist shots – that will be extra intense this year due to pent up desire after missing a year because of Covid.
—Carol Besler, Forbes, 21 Oct. 2021
For Nirbhaya's mother, justice is death for the men who gang raped her daughter.
—Vedika Sud, CNN, 19 Mar. 2020
Jang features in the names of many quintessential Korean ingredients, such as ganging (soy sauce), gochujang (chili paste) and doenjang (soybean paste).
—Katie Workman, NBC News, 8 Mar. 2020
And yet the oscillators responded differently to identical conditions, some ganging together while the rest went their own way, as if not coupled to anything at all.
—Natalie Wolchover, WIRED, 7 Apr. 2019
See More
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'gang.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Noun
Middle English, "going, journey, road, path, privy, group of items forming a set," going back to Old English, "going, walking, journey, course, path, privy," going back to Germanic *ganga- (whence Old Saxon gang "walk, course," Old High German "walk, journey, passage," Old Norse gangr "going, course," Gothic gagg "way"), noun derivative from the base of *gangan- "to go" — more at gang entry 3
Note: The meaning "set of articles" apparently first appeared in Middle English, the now predominant meaning "group of persons" in early Modern English (hypothesized instances of this sense in Middle and Old English are dubious). A direct descendant of Old English gang in Modern English would be gong (with the effects of vowel lengthening before the cluster -ŋg- and subsequent rounding of the long vowel in monosyllables), but this survived into Modern English only in the sense "privy"—the now general form gang for other senses was borrowed into standard English from northern dialects and Scots, where rounding never occurred. Use of both the noun and verb gang in its historical senses, denoting motion or passage, is now largely limited to traditional Scots.
Verb (1)
derivative of gang entry 1
Verb (2)
Middle English gangen, gongen & early Scots gang, going back to Old English gangan, gongan, going back to Germanic *gangan- (whence Old Saxon & Old High German gangan"to go," Old Norse ganga, Gothic gaggan), probably going back to Indo-European *ǵhenǵh-i̯̯e-, whence also Lithuanian žeñgti "to stride"
Note: Old English gangan, a Class VII strong verb, was used more or less as a synonym of gān, the ancestor of Modern English go entry 1 (itself descended from Germanic *gēn-), though forms other than the present tense and infinitive rarely occur. In other Germanic languages cognates of gangan served and still serve as suppletive forms of the parallel cognates of gān. Compare note at gang entry 1.
Noun
14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 3a
Verb (1)
1791, in the meaning defined at intransitive sense
Verb (2)
before the 12th century, in the meaning defined above
Phrases Containing gang
Dictionary Entries Near gang
Cite this Entry
“Gang.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gang. Accessed 2 Oct. 2023.
Copy Citation
Kids Definition
gang
1 of 2 noungang
2 of 2 verb
Legal Definition
gang
noun
More from Merriam-Webster on gang
Nglish: Translation of gang for Spanish Speakers
Britannica English: Translation of gang for Arabic Speakers
Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about gang
Share