fag

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See also: fág, fàg, and -fag

English

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /fæɡ/
  • Audio (AU):(file)
  • Rhymes: -æɡ

Etymology 1

Probably from fag end (“remnant”), from Middle English fagge (“flap”).

Noun

fag (plural fags)

  1. (US, technical) In textile inspections, a rough or coarse defect in the woven fabric.
  2. (UK, Ireland, Australia, colloquial, now offensive in US and Canada) A cigarette.
    • 1968 January 25, The Bulletin‎[2], Oregon:
      He′d Phase Out Fag Industry
      Los Angeles (UPI) - A UCLA professor has called for the phasing out of the cigarette industry by converting tobacco acres to other crops.
    • 1995, Pulp (lyrics and music), “Common People”, in Different Class:
      Oh, rent a flat above a shop / And cut your hair and get a job / And smoke some fags and play some pool / Pretend you never went to school
    • 2001, Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, Alfred A. Knopf, section 15:
      All of them, like my mother, were heavy smokers, and after warming themselves by the fire, they would sit on the sofa and smoke, lobbing their wet fag ends into the fire.
    • 2011, Bill Marsh, Great Australian Shearing Stories, unnumbered page:
      So I started off by asking the shearers if they minded if I took a belly off while they were having a fag. Then after a while they were asking me. They′d say, ‘Do yer wanta take over fer a bit while I have a fag?’ And then I got better and I′d finish the sheep and they′d say ‘Christ, I haven′t finished me bloody fag yet, yer may as well shear anotherie.’
  3. (UK, obsolete, colloquial) The worst part or end of a thing.
    • 1788, William Perry, editor, The Royal standard English dictionary‎[3]:
      Fag, s. the worst part or end of anything.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations

Usage notes

  • The usage to refer to a cigarette is no longer readily understood in North America due to the prevalence of the use as a homophobic slur there (see etymology 3). It is now likely to be misunderstood as such or otherwise seen as offensive by people from that region.[1] This can cause problems for people from other regions using the word like this on US-run social media platforms, even in local or regional spaces.

Etymology 2

Akin to flag (“droop, tire”). Compare Dutch vaak (“sleepiness”).

Noun

fag (plural fags)

  1. (British, dated, colloquial) A chore: an arduous and tiresome task.
    • The template Template:RQ:Austen Northanger Abbey does not use the parameter(s): 
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      We are sadly off in the country; not but what we have very good shops in Salisbury, but it is so far to go—eight miles is a long way; Mr. Allen says it is nine, measured nine; but I am sure it cannot be more than eight; and it is such a fag—I come back tired to death.
  3. (British, education, historical, colloquial) A younger student acting as a servant for senior students.
    • 1791, Richard Cumberland, The Observer, volume 4, page 67:
      I had the character at ſchool of being the very beſt fag that ever came into it.
    • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
      “He was my fag at Eton,” Warrington said. “I ought to have licked him a little more.”
    • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, page 18:
      A gang of fags was mobbing about by the notice-boards. They fell silent as he approached. He patted one of them on the head. ‘Pretty children,’ he sighed, digging into his waistcoat pocket and pulling out a handful of change. ‘Tonight you shall eat.’ Scattering the coins at their feet, he moved on.
Derived terms

Verb

fag (third-person singular simple present fags, present participle fagging, simple past and past participle fagged)

  2. (transitive, colloquial, used mainly in passive form) To make exhausted, tired out.
  3. (intransitive, colloquial) To droop; to tire.
    • a. 1829, G. Mackenzie, Lives, quoted in 1829, "Fag", entry in The London Encyclopaedia: Or, Universal Dictionary, Volume 9, page 12,
      Creighton with-held his force 'till the Italian began to fag, and then brought him to the ground.
  4. (intransitive, British, education, historical, colloquial) (of a younger student) To act as a servant for senior students in many British boarding schools.
  5. (transitive, British, education, historical, colloquial) To have (a younger student) act as a servant in this way.
    • 1887, Francis Bacon, Richard Whately, Essays, page 63:
      It is everywhere observed that a liberated slave is apt to make a merciless master, and that boys who have been cruelly fagged at school are cruel faggers.
  6. (intransitive, British, archaic) To work hard, especially on menial chores.
    • 1847, Charlotte Brontë, chapter 1, in Jane Eyre‎[4], HTML edition:
      This state of things should have been to me a paradise of peace, accustomed as I was to a life of ceaseless reprimand and thankless fagging; but, in fact, my racked nerves were now in such a state that no calm could soothe, and no pleasure excite them agreeably.
    • 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC:
      I walked about the streets where the best shops for ladies were, I haunted the Bazaar like an unquiet spirit, I fagged through the Park again and again, long after I was quite knocked up.
Derived terms

Usage notes

  • As with the usage to refer to a cigarette (see etymology 1), these usages may cause offence to people from North America due to the prevalence of the usage as a slur in that region. Even in the UK, due to the prevalence of the usage to refer to a cigarette, these usages may cause confusion or misunderstandings.

Etymology 3

Clipping of faggot.

Noun

fag (plural fags)

  1. (chiefly US, Canada, vulgar, usually offensive, sometimes endearing) A homosexual man, especially (usually derogatory) an effeminate or unusual one.
    • 1921 John Lind, The Female Impersonators (Historical Documentation of American Slang v. 1, A-G, edited by Jonathan E. Lighter (New York: Random House, 1994) page 716.
      Androgynes known as “fairies,” “fags,” or “brownies.”
    • 1926, American Neurological Association with New York Neurological Association et al., Journal of nervous and mental disease‎[5], volume 94, page 467:
      In schizophrenics, however, the homosexual outlet is sooner or later ... ideas that strangers call them "cs," "fairy," "woman," "fag," " fruit," etc.). ...
    • 1960, John Updike, 'Rabbit, Run', page 111:
      When they pick out a set of clubs for him to rent, he is so indifferent and silent the freckled kid in charge stares at him as if he's a moron. The thought flits through his brain that Eccles is known as a fag and he has become the new pet.
    • 2006, Lynn Mickelsen, Confusion Turned to Chaos:
      A couple of days later, Trisha tells Madelyn there is a rumor going around that she's a fag.
    • 2008, Paul Ryan Brewer, Value war: public opinion and the politics of gay rights, →ISBN, page 60:
      ... what appeared to be overt appeals to anti-gay sentiment. When House Majority Whip Dick Armey referred to fellow Congressman Barney Frank as "Barney Fag" in 1995, he suffered a barage of negative publicity that prompted him to explain his choice of words as a slip of the tongue.
  2. (US, vulgar, offensive) An annoying person.
    Why did you do that, you fag?
Usage notes

In North America, fag is often considered highly offensive, although some gay people have tried to reclaim it. (Compare faggot.) The humorousness of derived terms fag hag and fag stag is sometimes considered to lessen their offensiveness.

Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations

Anagrams

Aromanian

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Latin fāgus. Compare Romanian fag.

Noun

fag m (plural fadz)

  1. beech

Derived terms

Danish

Etymology

From German Fach (“compartment, drawer, subject”), from Old High German fah (“wall”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /faːˀɣ/, [ˈfæˀj], [ˈfæˀ], IPA(key): [ˈfɑw-] (in derivatives)

Noun

fag n (singular definite faget, plural indefinite fag)

  1. subject (of study)
  2. trade, craft, profession
  3. bay (the distance between two vertical or horizontal supports in roofs and walls)

Inflection

Declension of fag
neuter
gender 		Singular Plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative fag faget fag fagene
genitive fags fagets fags fagenes

Derived terms

Icelandic

Etymology

Borrowed from Danish fag, itself a borrowing from German Fach.

Pronunciation

Noun

fag n (genitive singular fags, nominative plural fög)

  1. subject (particular area of study)

Declension

    Declension of fag
n-s singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative fag fagið fög fögin
accusative fag fagið fög fögin
dative fagi faginu fögum fögunum
genitive fags fagsins faga faganna

Synonyms

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From Middle Low German or German Low German fak; compare with German Fach.

Noun

fag n (definite singular faget, indefinite plural fag, definite plural faga or fagene)

  1. subject (e.g., at school)
  2. profession, trade, discipline

Derived terms

References

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From Middle Low German or German Low German fak; compare with German Fach.

Noun

fag n (definite singular faget, indefinite plural fag, definite plural faga)

  1. subject (e.g., at school)
  2. profession, trade, discipline

Derived terms

References

Polish

Pronunciation

Template:pl-p

Noun

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  1. phage

Declension

Declension of fag
singular plural
nominative fag fagi
genitive faga fagów
dative fagowi fagom
accusative faga fagi
instrumental fagiem fagami
locative fagu fagach
vocative fagu fagi

Further reading

  • fag in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
  • fag in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Romanian

fag

Etymology 1

Inherited from Latin fāgus, from Proto-Italic *fāgos, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂ǵos (“beech tree”).

Noun

fag m (plural fagi)

  1. beech (tree of genus Fagus)
Declension
Declension of fag
singular plural
indefinite articulation definite articulation indefinite articulation definite articulation
nominative/accusative (un) fag fagul (niște) fagi fagii
genitive/dative (unui) fag fagului (unor) fagi fagilor
vocative fagule fagilor

Etymology 2

Inherited from Latin favus, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰōw- (“to swell, grow, thrive, be, live, dwell”).

Noun

fag n (plural faguri)

  1. (archaic) honeycomb
    Synonym: fagure

Welsh

Etymology 1

Pronunciation

Noun

fag

  1. Soft mutation of bag.

Mutation

Welsh mutation
radical soft nasal aspirate
bag fag mag unchanged
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

Noun

fag

  1. Soft mutation of mag.

Mutation

Welsh mutation
radical soft nasal aspirate
mag fag unchanged unchanged
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

References

  1. ^ Richard Forrester (2018 August 18) “Lee Dixon apologises for saying ‘fag’ on US tv when talking about Maurizio Sarri’s smoking habits”, in The Sun‎[1], retrieved 6 October 2023
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