nag
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈnæɡ/
ipa: /neɪɡ/
ipa: /nɛɡ/
rhymes: -æɡ
homophone: Knagg
Forms: form: nags
Etymology: Probably from a North Germanic source; compare Swedish nagga (“to gnaw, grumble”), Danish nage (“to nag, bother”), Icelandic nagga (“to complain”).
Compare typologically fret, Bulgarian глождя (gloždja), Russian глода́ть (glodátʹ), грызть (gryztʹ), по́едом есть (pójedom jestʹ), е́дкий (jédkij).
Senses: examples: text: 'That fellow is a nag.' 'Aye, the worst kind,' agreed Hamish, and then smiled, and at that smile, Miss Gunnery thawed even more.
ref: 2011, M.C. Beaton -, Death of a Nag, →ISBN:
text: When we see Wolfe struggling with many depictions of woman characters throughout the novel (the earlier ones being nags and white trash), we greatly admire the development of this living tribute to Aline Bernstein, a woman whom he ends up despising in his later life.
ref: 2014, Louise Hathaway, Nags, Sluts, and A Deep-Breasted Soulmate from the Shining City, →ISBN:
text: But, pchA has to produce more than awareness, always-on alerts/nags, or edu-tainment.
ref: 2015 -, Dwight McNeill, Using Person-Centered Health Analytics to Live Longer, →ISBN:
glosses: Someone or something that nags.
examples: text: And finally the biggest thank you of all to my partner Steven Winston for your love, enthusiasm, encouragement, support, humour, nags, and glasses of wine.
ref: 2011, Mike Bryant, Peter Mabbutt, Hypnotherapy For Dummies, →ISBN:
text: I turned it on Eileen and threw in a couple of my normal nags about her driving.
ref: 2015, Steve Brookstein, Getting Over the X, →ISBN, page 58:
text: A girl who expects her mother to nag her about her untidy bedroom will hear that message, even though the mother may want to talk about something quite different, so a loving invitiation to go shopping that started "When you've finished in your bedroom this morning. . ." might result in the child screaming, storming out and slamming the door because she expected this to be a nag about the state of the room and didn't let you finish with “ . . . shall we go to the shopping centre?”.
ref: 2016, Suzie Hayman, John Coleman, Parents and Digital Technology: How to Raise the Connected Generation, →ISBN:
glosses: A repeated complaint or reminder.
examples: text: All that while there was a little nag going on at the back of his mind, which he strove to disregard. But it insisted on attention, and to get rid of it he put down his palette abruptly and got out his mustard-tin cash-box and counted his money.
ref: 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 152:
text: During my lengthy aerobic strolls (which more or less served as a tool of meditation), that thought about “college” became a persistent nag.
ref: 2009, James Swift, How I Survived Three Years at a Two-Year Community College, →ISBN:
text: There are two ways to get rid of our nags. We can either use Ninja decision-making to turn them quickly into actions, stored in our second brain to be revisited when we have some time. Or we can simply just capture and collect the nag, knowing that our systems will ensure we return to it later.
ref: 2014, Graham Allcott, How to be a Productivity Ninja, →ISBN:
text: That feeling turned into a very persistent nag.
ref: 2016, Sarah Lowndes, The DIY Movement in Art, Music and Publishing, →ISBN:
glosses: A persistent, bothersome thought or worry.
Synonyms: sense: person who nags
word: shrew
Derived terms: nagless