ging

plural gings

1. obsoleteA company; troop; a gang.

   There is a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy againſt me.

   c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]

   1 more example

   Proceeding further, I am met vvith a vvhole ging of vvords and phraſes not mine, for he hath maim'd them, and like a ſlye depraver mangl'd them in this his vvicked Limbo, vvorſe then the ghoſt of Deiphobus appear'd to his friend Æneas.

   1642 April, John Milton, An Apology for Smectymnuus; republished in A Complete Collection of the Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous Works of John Milton, […], volume I, Amsterdam [actually London: s.n.], 1698, →OCLC, page 178

plural gings

1. AustraliaA ‘shanghai’, or handheld catapult.First known use 20th c.

   I put a stone in the ging and let fly.

   1965, Mudrooroo, Wild Cat Falling, HarperCollins, published 2001, page 13

plural gings

1. informalA redhead, a ginger-haired person

1. familiarA diminutive of the female given names Ginger and Virginia.

   Her taste for philosophical conundrums having been whetted rather than sated by decades of nothing to do, Ging often likes to speculate at length on whether we’re an incarnation that became a refuge, or a refuge that became an incarnation.

   2004, Tom Carson, Gilligan's Wake

   2 more examples

   Amelia thereupon taught Ginger Park and Lucy. [...] In one picture Amelia and three friends—Katherine Dolan (referred to as Dolan), Lucy (Toot), Virginia Park (Ging) are lying on their stomachs, their chins cupped in their hands, staring at the camera either before or after a basketball game; it is Amelia who is holding the ball.

   1999, Susan Butler, East to the Dawn

   But while Crosby was their first main topic of conversation, Johnny and Ginger soon began to have the experiences that draw people closer together. [...] “For years,” Mercer said, “anytime anything went wrong, Ging and I would just look at each other and say ‘Borough Hall!’ and think of that poor man who thought he was on his way to Harlem.”

   2003, Philip Furia, Skylark

plural Gings

1. A surname from Irish.