Ging

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. A group of people working or travelling together, a term used chiefly in Scottish dialect
2. A band or crew of workers, a word found mainly in Scots speech for a company of people
3. Used in Scottish dialect to mean a gathering or team of people who go about together

Etymology: The English noun "ging" has a surprisingly military and domestic past. Its earliest sense was "a troop" or "a company of people," from Old English "genge," which meant a band of retainers or followers. From there it sensibly narrowed to a working gang of labourers, and in Middle English it could also mean a privy, the sense that survives in the old notion of a "gang" of latrine workers. The word's deeper roots lie in movement. It descends from Proto-Germanic "*gangiją," meaning "pace" or "walk," the same stem that gave English "gang" and the verb "go" in its older form "gengan." Old Norse "gengi" carried a related sense of "accompaniment" or "entourage," which helps explain how a word for walking came to mean a group that walks together. Middle Low German "gink" meant "a going" or "a way," preserving the original idea of motion.