Other forms: gangways
A gangway is the narrow bridge you board a ship by. Down the gangway, raise the gangway, stand clear of the gangway.
It also names the passage between rows of seats, and gangway shouted as a word means get out of the way. The gang in it is the old sense of going, from the same root as the verb to go in Scots and northern English.
1noungangwayThe narrow bridge by which a ship is boarded.
“The passengers walked up the gangway and onto the ship.”
gangway is a passage.
Old English gangweg is gang, a going or passage, plus way. The gang here means walking, not a group.
Old English
gangweġ — passageway; thoroughfare
Middle English
gangway
English, today
gangway
From Middle English gangway, from Old English gangweġ (“passageway; thoroughfare”), equivalent to gang + way. Related to Dutch gang (“hallway”) and Norwegian gang (“hallway”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA