sang

1. 1
   verb

   Past tense of sing.

   The choir sang carols outside the old church.

   He sang softly to the baby until she fell asleep.

   Note

   The middle step of an irregular verb that changes its vowel: sing, sang, sung. Sang stands on its own (the choir sang), while sung follows an auxiliary (the choir has sung). Writing "they have sang" mixes the two forms. Sang covers every use of sing, with or without an object: she sang the baby to sleep, the birds sang at dawn.

2. 2
   noun

   Alternative form of sheng, a Chinese wind instrument.

   He played a slow tune on the sang at the festival.

   Each reed inside the sang vibrates to produce its distinctive tone.

   Note

   A romanization variant that applies only to the instrument. Sheng also names a Kenyan cant built on Swahili and English, but this spelling does not stand for that. The instrument is a free-reed mouth organ with thirteen or more bamboo pipes set in a wind chest, traditionally a dried gourd. On the page, only context keeps it apart from the past tense of sing.

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