Sang

How to spell sang

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce sang

What does sang mean?

1. verbThe simple past tense of sing: produced musical sounds with the voice at some time in the past.

Sang in a sentence

• The choir sang beautifully throughout the evening service.

• She sang a lullaby until the baby finally fell asleep.

Where does sang come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the simple past tense of the verb 'sing', which descends directly from the Old English 'singan', meaning to chant, recite, or make music with the voice. The word belongs to the native Germanic core of English and has cousins across the family, including the German 'singen' and the Dutch 'zingen'. Instead of adding an ending such as -ed, this verb changes its inner vowel to show past time, a very old pattern called ablaut: 'sing' becomes 'sang' for the simple past and 'sung' for the past participle. That three way pattern (sing, sang, sung) has survived almost unchanged for more than a thousand years. The spelling stays delightfully regular, so the only real trap for a writer is choosing 'sang' for the plain past tense rather than its participle partner 'sung'.

How the word is built

• sang (past tense of 'sing', formed by ablaut: the vowel change i to a that marks the simple past in this verb class)