gangue
/ɡæŋ/noun
gangue is a noun meaning “The earthy waste substances occurring in metallic ore” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled G-A-N-G-U-E, and it appears about once in every 24 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of gangue is gangues.
What does gangue mean?
noun
- 1
The earthy waste substances occurring in metallic ore.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce gangue?
- /ɡæŋ/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-gangue.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of gangue
- gangues plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is gangue?
Gangue appears about once in every 24 million words in written English, the 148,541st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Words people confuse with gangue
Sounds like: gang (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Gangue in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense earthy waste substances occurring in metallic ore:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does gangue come from?
Borrowed from French gangue. Doublet of gang.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).