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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

thong.

A narrow strip of material, typically leather, used to fasten, bind, or secure objects.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/θɒŋ/Received-Pronunciation/θɔŋ/General-American/θɑŋ/cot-caught-merger
  1. A narrow strip of material, typically leather, used to fasten, bind, or secure objects.

  2. An item of footwear, usually of rubber, secured by two straps which join to pass between the big toe and its neighbour.

    Australia · dated · plural-normally
  3. An item of clothing, usually an undergarment or swimwear consisting of very narrow strips designed to cover just the genitals and nothing more.

    UK · US
    She was impressed by her friend's confidence to wear a thong on the crowded beach.
  4. The largest section of a bullwhip constructed of many straps of braided leather.

Where this word comes from

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”), Swedish tving (“clamp”), Icelandic þvengur (“strap, thong, latchet”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.