Ging

//ˈɡɪŋ// name, noun, slang

name, noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A company; troop; a gang. obsolete

    "There is a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy againſt me."

  2. 2
    A ‘shanghai’, or handheld catapult. Australia

    "I put a stone in the ging and let fly."

  3. 3
    A redhead, a ginger-haired person informal
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A diminutive of the female given names Ginger and Virginia. familiar

    "Amelia thereupon taught Ginger Park and Lucy. [...] In one picture Amelia and three friends—Katherine Dolan (referred to as Dolan), Lucy (Toot), Virginia Park (Ging) are lying on their stomachs, their chins cupped in their hands, staring at the camera either before or after a basketball game; it is Amelia who is holding the ball."

  2. 2
    A surname from Irish.

Example

More examples

"There is a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy againſt me."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English gyng, gynge, genge, from Old English genge (“a troop, privy, company, retinue”), from Old Norse gengi, from Proto-Germanic *gangiją (“pace, walk”). Cognate with Middle Low German gink (“a going, turn, way”), Old Norse gengi (“accompaniment, entourage, help”), Icelandic gengi (“rate”). Related to Old English gengan (“to go”), from Proto-Germanic *gangijaną (“to go”). More at gang.

Etymology 2

Perhaps onomatopoeic.

Etymology 3

From ginger.

Etymology 4

Clipped form of Ginger, itself sometimes a nickname for Virginia.

Etymology 5

From a shortened Anglicized form of Irish Mac Fhionn, whence McGinn.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.