Stang
name, noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A forked ritual staff.
"The stang represents the horned god and the masculine force of nature. Much like the wand or athame, the stang is used for raising or directing power[…]"
- 2 Short for "Mustang", a brand of automobile produced by the Ford Motor Company. US, abbreviation, alt-of, slang
- 3 A long bar; a pole; a shaft; a stake. archaic, obsolete
"Gripping the stang, she peered / At ghostly trees. Bus stopped. Bus disappeared."
- 4 In land measure, a pole, rod, or perch. historical, obsolete
"These fields were intermingled with woods of half a stang,*... (with the corresponding footnote: "An old word for a perch, sixteen feet and a half. These small woods were therefore eight feet and a quarter.")"
- 1 To shoot with pain, to sting. Scotland, intransitive
- 2 simple past of sting dialectal, form-of, past, rare
- 3 To spear; to sting. Scotland, transitive
- 1 A surname.
- 2 Ford Mustang US, slang
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"The stang represents the horned god and the masculine force of nature. Much like the wand or athame, the stang is used for raising or directing power[…]"
Etymology
From Middle English stang, stong, from Old Norse stǫng, from Proto-Germanic *stangiz, *stangō (“bar, rod”), from Proto-Indo-European *stengʰ-, *stegʰ- (“to stick, sting, prick, be stiff”).
From Middle English stangen, from Old Norse stanga (“prick, goad”).
From the German and Jewish surname, from the noun Stange (“pole”).
Related phrases
More for "stang"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.