sag
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: From earlier sag, sagg, sack, from Middle English saggen, probably from Middle Low German sacken (“to sink, drift”), ultimately of North Germanic/Scandinavian/Old Norse origin, akin to Old Norse søkkva (“to sink”), from a denasalized derivative of Proto-Germanic *sinkwaną (“to sink”). Cognate with Scots seg (“to sink”), Danish sakke (“to lag behind”), Swedish sacka (“to lag”), Icelandic sakka (“to sink”), Faroese søkka (“to sink, drop down, descend, set”), Dutch zakken (“to fall, drop, sink”), German Low German sacken (“to sink”), and German sacken (“to sink”) (from Low German).
Compare also Norwegian Nynorsk sagga (“to walk or move heavily and slowly”).
Inflected forms:
form: sags
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: seg
pos: noun
tags: alternative
dialectal
form: segg
pos: noun
tags: alternative
dialectal
form: sack
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: sags
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: sagging
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: sagged
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: sagged
pos: verb
tags: past
form: seg
pos: verb
tags: alternative
dialectal
form: segg
pos: verb
tags: alternative
dialectal
form: sack
pos: verb
tags: alternative
obsolete
Senses:
gloss: The state of sinking or bending; a droop.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: The difference in elevation of a wire, cable, chain or rope suspended between two consecutive points.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: The difference in height or depth between the vertex and the rim of a curved surface, specifically used for optical elements such as a mirror or lens.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: A place where the surface (of a seat, the earth, etc) sinks or droops, like a depression or a dip in a ridge.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: a mass of igneous rock […] shown as a semicircular area of shonkinite exposed in the west wall of the sag. From the valley below, it appears as a dark cliff, perhaps 100 feet in height and a few hundred yards long.
Gunsight Peak north of the sag marks the southern end of the Malad Range that extends into Idaho. Complexly faulted Cambrian and Ordovician shelf sedimentary rocks are present[…]
gloss: To sink, in the middle, by its weight or under applied pressure, below a horizontal line or plane.
pos: verb
examples: A line or cable supported by its ends sags, even if it is tightly drawn.
The floor of a room sags.
Her once firm bosom began to sag in her thirties.
gloss: To lean, give way, or settle from a vertical position.
pos: verb
tags: broadly
examples: A building may sag one way or another.
The door sags on its hinges.
The weather became more and more threatening; the ship sagged to the leeward more than she ought.
gloss: To lose firmness, elasticity, vigor, or a thriving state; to sink; to droop; to flag; to bend; to yield, as the mind or spirits, under the pressure of care, trouble, doubt, or the like; to be unsettled or unbalanced.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
examples: The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear, / Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.
gloss: To loiter in walking; to idle along; to drag or droop heavily.
pos: verb
gloss: To cause to bend or give way; to load.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To wear one's trousers so that their top is well below the waist.
pos: verb
tags: informal
gloss: To pull down someone else's pants as a prank.
pos: verb
tags: Canada
informal
Derived words: antisag
sag bag
sagbend
sagflation
sagger
saggy
sagless
sag off
sag pond
sagproof
sag wagon
Translations: