rag
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɹæɡ/
rhymes: -æɡ
Forms: form: rags
Etymology: From Middle English ragge, from Old English ragg (suggested by derivative raggiġ (“shaggy; bristly; ragged”)), from Old Norse rǫgg (“tuft; shagginess”), from Proto-Germanic *rawwa-, probably related to *rūhaz. Cognate with Swedish ragg. Related to rug.
Senses: examples: text: —What a pretty dress! —What, this old rag?
text: It's semiformal. I can't show up dressed in rags!
text: rags to riches
text: And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
ref: 1684, John Dryden, Miscellany Poems: Containing a New Translation of Virgills Eclogues, Ovid's Love Elegies, Odes of Horace and Other Authors, The twenty-ninth ode of the first book of Horace:
glosses: Tattered clothes (clothing).
examples: text: Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, toss'd, / And flutter'd into rags; then reliques, beads,
ref: 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book III, lines 490-491:
text: […]even by the law of their own might and malice, not having otherwise any rag of legality to cover the shame of their cruelty.
ref: 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain from the Birth of Jesus Christ until the year MDCXLVIII, page 399:
glosses: A piece of old cloth, especially one used for cleaning, patching, etc.; a tattered piece of cloth; a shred or tatter.
examples: text: For upon the like Proclamation there, they all came in, both tag and rag
ref: 1596, Edmund Spenser, A Veue of the Present State of Irelande:
text: The other zealous rag is the compositor, / Who in an angle where the ants inhabit, / (The emblems of his labors) will sit curl'd
ref: 1623, Ben Jonson, Time Vindicated to Himself and to His Honours:
text: Nor will it be achieved by marching in the streets in leather, drag, chains, fish net over-flying-tits or any other get up. It will not be accomplished by hung-over bar rags, hustlers, shallow queens, or angry dykes.
ref: 1986 February 8, “It’s Not The Sex, It’s The Morality”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 29, Boston, page 5:
glosses: A shabby, beggarly person; synonym of ragamuffin.
coordinate_terms: bur#Noun
burr#Noun
glosses: A ragged edge in metalworking.
examples: text: Our ship was a clipper, with every rag set, stunsails, sky-scrapers, and all.
ref: 1864, James Russell Lowell, My Garden Acquaintance; A Good Word for Winter; A Moosehead Journal, page 83:
text: "'Oh yes, that's all very well, but we haven't done with it yet,' said the lad, 'we shall have it worse directly,' and he ordered them to furl every rag but the mizen."
ref: 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 191:
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: A sail, or any piece of canvas.
examples: text: "It's heaviest on the first day, which might be why it hurts so much. After that, it slows down and eventually stops, but you'll need the rags for about a week."
ref: 2020, Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words, page 56:
glosses: Sanitary napkins, pads, or other materials used to absorb menstrual discharge.
examples: text: "You must behave yourself, dear. Mr. Malone is a Pressman. He will have it all in his rag to-morrow, and sell an extra dozen among our neighbors."
ref: 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:
synonyms: fish wrap
glosses: A newspaper or magazine, especially one whose journalism is considered to be of poor quality.
examples: text: I have ace-four on my hand. In other words, I have ace-rag.
topics: card-games
poker
glosses: A poor, low-ranking kicker.
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
theater
glosses: A curtain of various kinds.
examples: text: "It took it out of me, though. I'm a rag this morning." "They work you too hard, dear."
ref: 1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:
glosses: A person suffering from exhaustion or lack of energy.
examples: text: What was he at, do you think? Counting bank-notes; he had bundles of them. […] Well, Guv'nor, he stood up by-and-by, and taking the bundles of rags, the big uns in one hand, tother ones in tother, he toddled out of the room; […] So I tucked my violin under my arm, and sallied out after the old budgy ragman, determined to ease him of his load at the very first lonesome corner I could track him to.
ref: 1876, The Shamrock, volume 14:
glosses: A banknote.
examples: text: We always leave rag on article typeset for the web.
topics: media
publishing
typography
glosses: An uneven vertical margin (of a block of type).
Derived terms: bean rag
boiled rag
chew the rag
cumrag
cuntrag
dishrag
do-rag
fag rag
glad rags
head rag
in rag order
in rags
jam rag
jizzrag
lose one's rag
main rag
oily rag
on the rag
rag-and-bone man
rag and bone man
rag-and-bone shop
ragazine
ragbag
rag bagger
ragbond
rag book
rag-box
rag-chewing
rag doll
ragged
ragger
raggy
raghead
raghorn
ragleaf
raglike
ragman
rag paper
ragpick
ragpicker
rag pudding
rag race
rag-roll
rag-rolling
rag rug
rags and tatters
rag-shop
rags to riches
rags-to-riches
ragtag
ragtop
rag trade
ragweed
ragworm
ragwort
red-ragger
red rag to a bull
red rag
shag-rag
shaving rag
smell of an oily rag
snot rag
stab-rag
stone-rag
tag and rag
tag-rag
toe rag
toe-rag
washrag
wet rag