Tanghiste (@Italian speakers?)
I found Tanghiste as a woman's name in a batch of 16th-century English wills. A quick Google seems to indicate it's an Italian word, but I don't speak Italian and Google Translate doesn't have it. Can anyone help?
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It's fun to know that Tanghiste means "women who dance the tango" in modern Italian, but as the dance itself was only created during the 19th century in Argentina, that isn't any help in figuring out why Tanghiste appears as a woman's name in a 16th century English will. :)http://www.tejastango.com/tango_history.html
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Tanghiste would be the female plural of tanghista, which refers either to a woman who dances tango or a woman who wears the tanga, which is Italian for G-string. It's not a very common word and I doubt it's related to the name you found.
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From looking at the Google results, I don't think that this Italian word has anything to do with your 16th century English name.After checking writings like this article:
http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Cronache/2005/07_Luglio/30/tanga.shtml
I got the impression that Italian 'tanghiste' is a word creation turning the word "tanga" (for the minimalist woman's underware) into an adjective meaning something like "tanga-wearing".
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The word tanghiste is the plural of tanghista, an adaptation from the Spanish tanguista, "tango dancer". Since Argentina and Uruguay (tango homeland) have a huge amount of from Italian descent and Italian speaker population, it is not strange at all that the word has appeared in Italian.It is possible that someone is now using tanghista in relation with tanga (just as in Spanish tanguista), but the main meaning is related with the tango.
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