hag
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /hæɡ/
rhymes: -æɡ
Forms: form: hags
Etymology: From Middle English hagge, hegge (“demon, old woman”), shortening of Old English hægtesse, hægtes (“harpy, witch”), from Proto-West Germanic *hagatussjā. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Häkse (“witch”), Dutch heks, German Hexe (“witch”). Doublet of hex.
Senses: examples: text: And that olde hag that with a staffe his staggering lymbes dooth stay
ref: 1565, Arthur Golding (tr.), The Fyrst Fower Bookes of P. Ouidius Nasos worke intitled Metamorphosis, London: William Seres, The Fovrthe Booke:
text: Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched.
ref: 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 3, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 11:
glosses: A witch, sorceress, or enchantress; a female wizard.
examples: text: The elder women were literally "old hags" - lean and shrivelled, and excessively ugly.
ref: 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 67:
glosses: An ugly old woman.
examples: text: I don't plan to stop drinking. But... I don't wanna forget. I can't turn away anymore. So, if I'm gonna die, well, it might as well be driving my sword through the heart of that murderous hag.
ref: 2017, Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, directed by Taika Waititi, Thor: Ragnarok, spoken by Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson):
glosses: An evil woman.
examples: text: – What is that hag trend that is going on?
text: – The trend, hagmaxxing, is when younger men pursue relationships with hags.
glosses: A woman over the age of 30 years.
examples: text: Fourth of the cursed knot of hags is she / Or rather all the other three in one; / Hell's shop of slaughter she does oversee, / And still assist the execution
ref: 1646, Richard Crashaw, “Sospetto D' Herode”, in Steps to the Temple, stanza 37:
glosses: A fury; a she-monster.
glosses: A hagfish; one of various eel-like fish of the family Myxinidae, allied to the lamprey, with a suctorial mouth, labial appendages, and a single pair of gill openings.
glosses: A hagdon or shearwater; one of various sea birds of the genus Puffinus.
examples: text: Flamma lambentes (or those we call Haggs) are made of Sweat or some other Vapour issuing out of the Head; a not-unusuall sight amongst us when we ride by night in the Summer time: They are extinguisht, like flames, by shaking the Horse Mains
ref: 1656, Thomas White, Peripateticall Institutions, page 149:
glosses: An appearance of light and fire on a horse's mane or a person's hair.
glosses: The fruit of the hagberry, Prunus padus.
glosses: Sleep paralysis.
Synonyms: sense: witch or sorceress
word: magician
sense: ugly old woman
word: ugly woman
sense: eel-like marine fish
word: borer
sense: eel-like marine fish
word: hagfish
sense: eel-like marine fish
word: sleepmarken
sense: eel-like marine fish
word: slime eel
sense: eel-like marine fish
word: sucker
sense: eel-like marine fish
word: myxinid
sense: sea bird
word: hagdon
sense: sea bird
word: haglet
sense: sea bird
word: shearwater
sense: fruit of the hagberry
word: bird cherry
sense: fruit of the hagberry
word: hackberry
Derived terms: boo hag
fag hag
glutinous hag
grab hag
hagborn
hagged
haggish
haggy
haglike
hag moth
hagridden
hag-ridden
hagride
hagseed
hagship
hagsploitation
hag-taper
moss-hag
night-hag
night hag
old hag syndrome