dial. [Of Norse origin; = Norw., Da., Færoese tang, Sw. tång seaweed, Icel. þáng fucus. The Norns of Orkney and Shetland had also, like Norwegian, tang.] A collective name for large coarse seaweeds, esp. species of Fucus; tangle, sea-wrack; also called sea-tang.
Black tang, the bladder-wrack, Fucus vesiculosus. Prickly tang, F. aculeatus. Yellow tang, F. nodosus.
1547. Salesbury, Welsh Dict., Dylysc, Tang.
1655. Bp. J. Richardson, Observ. O. T., 11. The likeliest reason is from the Hebrew appellation, calling it the sea of weeds, or sedge, mare algosum, of flag, or rush, or tange.
a. 1733. Shetland Acts, 33, in Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot. (1892), XXVI. 201. That none take bait nor cast tang in another man’s ebb.
1769. Pennant, Zool., III. 169. Lying under the stones among the tang on the rocky coasts of Anglesea.
1796. Statist. Acc. Scotl., XVII. 233*. The sea-oak (Fucus vesiculosus, Lin.), which we denominate black tang.
1809. Edmondston, View Zetland Isl., II. viii. 6. Before 1808, the yellow tang and the black tang were the only species used in the manufacture of kelp.
1810. Edin. Rev., XVII. 146. The prickly tang … often grows intermixed with the bladder-wrack.
1859. H. Kingsley, G. Hamlyn, xxxiv. Wet-footed and happy, dragging a yard or so of sea-tang behind her.
b. Comb., as tang-covered adj.; tang-fish, the seal; tang-sparrow, the rock pipit (Anthus obscurus); tang-whaup, the whimbrel (Numenius phæopus).
1887. Jesse M. E. Saxby, Lads of Lunda, 122. Leaving the *tang-covered crown of the skerry glistening under the sunset rays.
1809. Edmondston, Zetland, II. 292. Seals are seen … [on] the coast of Zetland, and are vulgarly known by the name of *tang-fish.
1822. Hibbert, Shetl. Isl., 586. The smaller seals, or Tang-fish, so named from being supposed to live among the Tang.
1880. Jamieson, *Tang-sparrow.
1885. Swainson, Provinc. Names Birds, 46. Rock pipit … called from being exclusively confined to the sea shore … also … Tang sparrow (Shetland Isles).
1808–18. Jamieson, *Tang-whaup, the whimbrel, Orkn.
1833. Montagu’s Ornith. Dict., 534. Whimbrel…. Provincial. Curlew knot…. Tang-whaup.
