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''thong'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''thong'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260124004559-00-⌔

thong - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

thong (plural thongs)

🖼️ ➺ 🖼️ ➺

  • A narrow strip of material, typically leather, used to fasten, bind, or secure objects.
  • (usually in the plural, Australia, dated in US) An item of footwear, usually of rubber, secured by two straps which join to pass between the big toe and its neighbour.
    • ✤ Because of August he wears shorts and sandals, the Japanese geta sort called thongs.1
    • ✤ T-shirts, cut-offs, and a pair of thongs (T-shirts, cut-offs, and a pair of thongs).2
    • ✤ Players turned up for questioning wearing thongs, shorts and T-shirts.3
    • ✤ Thongs are the favoured footwear for many Aussies, especially near the beaches, but most people in the Outback find that they can’t put a foot wrong with a tough, nicely worn-in pair or workboots.4
    • ✤ You shouldn′t face condescension if you rock into a boutique in your thongs and a singlet, but neither will you be treated like a princess just because you’ve splashed $5000 on daddy’s credit card.5
  • (UK, US) An item of clothing, usually an undergarment or swimwear consisting of very narrow strips designed to cover just the genitals and nothing more.
    • ✤ She was impressed by her friend’s confidence to wear a thong on the crowded beach.
    • ✤ “Another girl bends over to get her books from her locker. Her hot pink thong sticks out of her low-rise pants.”6
    • ✤ “At her friends’ urging, Margo ended up buying a purple thong.”7
  • The largest section of a bullwhip constructed of many straps of braided leather.

Etymology

From Middle English thong, thwong, thwang, from Old English þwong, þwang (“thong, band, strap, cord, strip of leather; phylactery”), from Proto-West Germanic ﹡þwangi, from Proto-Germanic ﹡þwangiz, ﹡þwanguz (“coercion, constraint, band, clamp, strap”), from Proto-Indo-European ﹡twenk- (“to squeeze, press, pressure”). Cognate with Scots thwang, thwayng, thang (“thong”), Middle Low German dwenge (“clamp, jaws, steel-trap”), German Zwinge (“vise, clamp”), Danish tvinge (“clamp”), dialectal Norwegian tveng (“shoestrap, shoelace”), Icelandic þvengur (“strap, thong, latchet”).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) enPR: thŏng, IPA: /θɒŋ/
  • (General American) IPA: /θɔŋ/
    • (cot–caught merger) IPA: /θɑŋ/
  • Audio (Australian): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ɒŋ

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1963 March 16, Hal Porter, “Little old lady passing by”, in The Bulletin, page 22, column 3: ↩

  2. 1964, The Beach Boys, All Summer Long: ↩

  3. 2006, Peter Murray, David Poole, Grant Jones, Contemporary Issues in Management and Organisational Behaviour, Thomson, page 108, ↩

  4. 2008, Steve Parish, Eccentric Australia ‎, page 104: ↩

  5. 2009, Charles Rawlings-Way, Sydney, Lonely Planet, page 126: ↩

  6. 2005, Alyssa Schafer, “Is school dress appropriate or over the line?”, in The Bismarck Tribune: ↩

  7. 2009, Ashley Rae Harris, Do You Love Me?: Making Healthy Dating Decisions, Abdo Group, →ISBN, page 16: ↩

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