Tanga

name, noun

name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any of various former Asian coins, including: a coin of Portuguese India worth one tenth of a rupee; a gold coin of India issued by various Muslim rulers; a silver coin of India, also issued by Muslim rulers; and a former silver coin of Tibet. historical

    "The larines are woorth by just value basaruchies 93 and 3 fourth parts, and 4 larines make a seraphine of siluer, which is 5 tangas of good money, and these also haue serafagion of 6, 7, 8, 10, vntil 16, by the 100, for when the ships depart for the North, to say, for Chaul, Diu, Cambaia, or Bassaim, all cary of the same, because it is money more currant then any other."

  2. 2
    A pair of tanga briefs.
  3. 3
    100 tanga equal 1 Tajikistani ruble wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A city and port, the capital of the Tanga Region, Tanzania.

Example

More examples

"The larines are woorth by just value basaruchies 93 and 3 fourth parts, and 4 larines make a seraphine of siluer, which is 5 tangas of good money, and these also haue serafagion of 6, 7, 8, 10, vntil 16, by the 100, for when the ships depart for the North, to say, for Chaul, Diu, Cambaia, or Bassaim, all cary of the same, because it is money more currant then any other."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Portuguese tanga, from Kimbundu tanga or ntanga (“coarse cloth; loincloth”).

Etymology 2

From Swahili tanga (“sail”)

Related phrases

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