A word sometimes app. purely echoic, denoting the strong ringing note produced when a large bell or any sonorous body is suddenly struck with force, or a tense string is sharply plucked; but often denoting a sound of a particular tone, esp. (? under the influence of TANG sb.1) one of an unpleasant kind; a twang.
(Some place here Shakespeare’s ‘tongue with a tang’ (see TANG sb.1 5 c), which has prob. influenced some of the later uses here quoted.)
1669. Holder, Elem. Speech, 78. There is a pretty affectation in the Allemain, which gives their Speech a different Tang from ours.
1686. Bunyan, Country Rhymes, xxix. 37.
| My body is the Steeple, where they hang, | |
| My Graces they which do ring ev’ry Bell: | |
| Nor is there any thing gives such a tang, | |
| When by these Ropes these Ringers ring them well. |
1866. Lowell, Study Wind., 120. But he had hoped for a certain tang in the down-come of the bell.
1871. P. H. Waddell, Ps. in Scotch, Pref. 2. Mony a tang o’ his [David’s] harp had its ain sugh eftirhen’ in Gethsemane.
1880. [see TANKARD 3].
1883. Century Mag., XXVI. 888. A sort of fever which lent a petulant tang to her speech.
1892. Star, 9 Aug., 1/7. The organist has … a hard task in eradicating the awful Cambridgeshire tang from the voices of his raw material.
1897. Miss Broughton, Dear Faustina, xiv. Faustina is still fondly smiling, but in her tone there is the slight tang of displeasure.
1899. Crockett, Kit Kennedy, iii. 20. A … voice … with the snell Scottish scolding ‘tang’ in it, which is ever more humorous than alarming to those whom it addresses.
1919. Stacy Aumonier, Querrils, iii. 54. She answered briefly, in low tones that had a Southern tang, making the cockneyisms attractive.
b. quasi-adv. As an imitation of the sound of a vibrating string.
1812. H. & J. Smith, Rej. Addr., Theatre, 25. Tang goes the harpsichord, too-too the flute.
