Thong is a
hamlet southeast of
Gravesend
Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, situated 21 miles (35 km) east-southeast of Charing Cross (central London) on the Bank (geography), south bank of the River Thames and opposite Tilbury in Essex. Located in the diocese of Ro ...
in
Kent, England. The population of the hamlet is included in the
civil parish of
Shorne.
It has frequently been noted on lists of
unusual place names
Unusual place names are names for cities, towns, and other regions which are considered non-ordinary in some manner. This can include place names which are also offensive words, inadvertently humorous or highly charged words, as well as place ...
and appeared as a question answer for ''
Round Britain Quiz'' on
BBC Radio 4.
The name 'Thong' is first attested in the ''Registrum Roffense'' of circa 1200, where it appears as ''Thuange''. The name may correspond with the
Middle Low German ''dwenge'' meaning 'trap', but this cannot be confirmed.
Eilert Ekwall
Bror Oscar Eilert Ekwall (born 8 January 1877 in Vallsjö (now in Sävsjö, Jönköpings län), Sweden, died 23 November 1964 in Lund, Skåne län, Sweden), known as Eilert Ekwall, was Professor of English at Sweden's Lund University from 1909 to ...
, ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names'', p.466.
References
Hamlets in Kent
{{Kent-geo-stub