Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A sudden sharp spasm of pain. See Synonyms at pain.
- n. A sudden sharp feeling of emotional distress.
- v. To cause to feel pangs; distress acutely.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A sudden paroxysm of pain; a transitory or recurring attack of agony; an acute painful spasm; a throe; hence, a sudden and bitter sentiment of sorrow, disappointment, injury, etc.
- n. Synonyms Anguish, Torture, etc. (see agony), twinge, gripe, ache, suffering.
- To cause to suffer a pang or pangs; pain; torture.
- To press; cram, in any way; cram with food.
Wiktionary
- n. often pluralized paroxysm of extreme physical pain or anguish; sudden and transitory agony;throe
- n. often pluralized A sharp, sudden feeling of a mental or emotional nature, as of joy or sorrow
- v. transitive to torment; to torture; to cause to have great pain or suffering
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A paroxysm of extreme pain or anguish; a sudden and transitory agony; a throe.
- v. rare To torture; to cause to have great pain or suffering; to torment.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a sharp spasm of pain
- n. a mental pain or distress
- n. a sudden sharp feeling
Etymologies
- From Middle English *pange, an altered form of prange, pronge ("pang, throe, stab etc.") (Wiktionary)
- Origin unknown. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The pang is over, his sufferings are at an end for ever.”
“I tried to sway her by employing a string of Chinese proverbs, the expression pang guang zhe qing, or “the bystander sees more clearly” being a case in point.”
“Julia felt a certain pang at the thought of judgment being passed so lightly upon all those months or years of hard authorial labour.”
“That grief – the one great grief of their life, had come to her more wholesomely than to her husband: either because men, the very best of men, can only suffer, while women can endure; or because in the mysterious ordinance of nature Maud's baby lips had sucked away the bitterness of the pang from the bereaved mother, while her loss was yet new.”
“Destruction waits on all who would steal one pang from the racked heart of William Wallace!”
“Its pang is short-lived, and the face of the field-cornet soon lightens up again as he looks around upon his dear children, so full of hope and promise.”
“It gave him, he said in Parliament, a deep pang; and, as he uttered the word pang, his lip quivered, his voice shook, he paused, and his hearers thought that he was about to burst into tears.”
“I do not fear to die," she said; "that pang is past.”
“A pang is a paroxysm of extreme pain or anguish; a sudden and transitory agony; a throe; as, the pangs of death.”
“I have just been contending with a severe pang, that is now gone off; what effect its return may have, God only knows.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pang’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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MuffinBurns's list
Words to dreams
rapture, cove, tingling, pahutakawa, pang, khop kun kop, hella, boffo, nirvana, flood, synchronicity, sysiphus and 9 more...
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Muddleheaded Wombat
Childhood reading nostalgia, beginning with some choice examples from Ruth Park's classic The Muddleheaded Wombat.
miserabubble, animoil, soporific, possum magic, curiouser, snugglepot, cuddlepie, banksia men, gumnut babies, bottersnikes, magic pudding, gumbles and 31 more...
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hildjj's Words
bookmarklet, demisemiquaver, zeitgeist, hermeneutics, oligarch, quisling, absinthe, mellifluent, verisimilitude, implacable, necrotic, nacreous and 243 more...
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Sense and Sensibility
Words from the book by Jane Austen.
shew, shewn, shewing, shewed, dupe, wither, rambled, extorting, cavil, rap, mildness, controuled and 133 more...
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Words I have to learn
exasperate, felony, weld, fraud, worksheet, ransom, rehearse, preliminary, offshore, parole, infamous, sieve and 436 more...
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tree's Words
aphasia, anhedonia, promontory, misandry, amanuensis, asymptote, penultimate, muslin, tundra, calico, kinaesthesia, rutabaga and 209 more...
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Malachi_Constant's Words
triumverate, pandemic, parsnip, delineate, zamboni, parka, laser, swoop, malevolent, benevolent, fracas, tipsy and 372 more...
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And another
retrocausality, brusque, gainsay, cheerio, jaundiced, chamois, caw, craw, fudge, bubbler, shebang, bolo and 244 more...
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Revised GRE Wordlist_2013
Vocabulary building for my quest of GRE 2013
ephemeral, esoteric, rhetoric, censure, egregious, pittance, dupe, mulct, paucity, alacrity, maintain, laconic and 997 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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Winter's Bone vocabulary
Study list of difficult words from Daniel Woodrell's novel Winter's Bone. In reverse order: start at the bottom to see words from the beginning of the novel!
plaid, lazy susan, lope, furtive, dour, scamper, hard-boiled, implacable, dainty, stomp, resignation, crank and 138 more...
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The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Murakam...
found while reading
frontispiece, expedient, dapple, sheaf, downy, rivet, curriculum vitae, furtive, austerity, rebuke, prognostication, pedigree and 99 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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New Words
smarmy, purge, linger, shimmer, fiercely, frantically, shove, grunt, errand, clench, wriggle, squeeze and 168 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for pang.
frindley This is the word used for a gunshot in my German translation of a Tin Tin story (Der blaue Lotos). Apr 8, 2008