FANG

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Fang mean? 

• FANG (noun)
  The noun FANG has 4 senses:

1. a Bantu language spoken in Cameroon

2. an appendage of insects that is capable of injecting venom; usually evolved from the legs

3. canine tooth of a carnivorous animal; used to seize and tear its prey

4. hollow or grooved tooth of a venomous snake; used to inject its poison

  Familiarity information: FANG used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FANG (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A Bantu language spoken in Cameroon

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("Fang" is a kind of...):

Bantoid language; Bantu (a family of languages widely spoken in the southern half of the African continent)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An appendage of insects that is capable of injecting venom; usually evolved from the legs

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("fang" is a kind of...):

appendage; extremity; member (an external body part that projects from the body)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "fang"):

toxicognath (either of a pair of poison fangs in the modified front pair of legs of the centipede)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Canine tooth of a carnivorous animal; used to seize and tear its prey

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("fang" is a kind of...):

canine; canine tooth; cuspid; dogtooth; eye tooth; eyetooth (one of the four pointed conical teeth (two in each jaw) located between the incisors and the premolars)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Hollow or grooved tooth of a venomous snake; used to inject its poison

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("fang" is a kind of...):

tooth (hard bonelike structures in the jaws of vertebrates; used for biting and chewing or for attack and defense)

 Context examples 

If this man- animal intended harm, White Fang knew that he could not escape it.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

The fangs pressed softly; the pressure increased; the wolf was exerting its last strength in an effort to sink teeth in the food for which it had waited so long.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Fawn or fang, it was all a matter of chance.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He had killed man, the noblest game of all, and he had killed in the face of the law of club and fang.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

His black moustache lifted and a white fang twinkled in a sneer.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Jealousy had got hold of him: she stung him; but the sting was salutary: it gave him respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It would be a sharp-eyed coroner, indeed, who could distinguish the two little dark punctures which would show where the poison fangs had done their work.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The tortures of the accused did not equal mine; she was sustained by innocence, but the fangs of remorse tore my bosom and would not forgo their hold.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

“Snake-catcher is what I call them, and Teddy is amazing quick on cobras. I have one here without the fangs, and Teddy catches it every night to please the folk in the canteen.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Was it a fierce tiger of crime, which could only be taken fighting hard with flashing fang and claw, or would it prove to be some skulking jackal, dangerous only to the weak and unguarded?

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)