jag

plural jags

1. A sharp projection.

   garments thus beset with long jagges and pursles

   1659, T[itus] Livius [i.e., Livy], “(please specify the book number)”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Romane Historie […], London: […] W. Hunt, for George Sawbridge, […], →OCLC

   3 more examples

   The thick black cloud was cleft, and still / The Moon was at its side; / Like waters shot from some high crag, / The lightning fell with never a jag, / A river steep and wide.

   1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, lines 323–7

   The especial beauty of London is the Thames, and the Thames is so wonderful because the mist is always changing its shapes and colours, always making its light mysterious, and building palaces of cloud out of mere Parliament Houses with their jags and turrets.

   1909, Arthur Symons, London: A Book of Aspects, self-published, page 3

   Even if you hadn’t been drowned, you would have been smashed to pieces by the terrible weight of water against the countless jags of rock.

   1956, C. S. Lewis, chapter 16, in The Last Battle, Collins, published 1998

2. A part broken off; a fragment.

   some Jaggs will ſuffice to be recited

   1693, John Hacket, Scrinia Reserata

   1 more example

   I depart as air .... I shake my white locks at the runway sun, / I effuse my flesh in eddies and drift it in lacy jags.

   1855, Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”, in Leaves of Grass, page 56

3. A flap, a tear in a clothing
4. biologyA cleft or division.
5. ScotlandA medical injection, a jab.
6. PennsylvaniaWesterndialectalA thorn from a bush (see jaggerbush).
7. PennsylvaniaWesternabbreviationderogatorydialectalellipsisEllipsis of jagoff (“an irritating, inept, or repugnant person”).

present singular third person jags · participle present jagging · participle past jagged · past jagged

1. To cut unevenly.

   On the Friday […] we had been playing tennis and in some way Geoffrey jagged a finger nail so that it kept catching in his things whenever he touched it.

   1934, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], The Bravo of London

2. Northern EnglandPennsylvaniaScotlandWesternTo pierce with a sharp object.
3. PennsylvaniaWesternTo tease.

plural jags

1. Enough liquor to make a person noticeably drunk; a skinful.
2. A binge or period of overindulgence; a spree.

   He eventually finished the novel after a 10-day writing jag.

   2026 April 4, Jonathan Derbyshire, “Lunch with the FT: Jay McInerney”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 3

   2 more examples

   Consider, the pessimists argue, the vast number of plays which it is only possible to sit through with the assistance of what Ella Wheeler Wilcox would call a mild jag.

   1919 August, P. G. Wodehouse, “Prohibition and the Drama”, in Vanity Fair, page 21

   ‘People who spend their money for second-hand sex jags are as nervous as dowagers who can't find the rest-room.’

   1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, page 77

3. A fit, spell, outburst.

   Of course she did not lose her sense of humor (not necessarily to be confused with her laughing fits, which are crying jags turned inside out according to the shrinks).

   1985, Peter De Vries, chapter 9, in The Prick of Noon, Penguin, page 165

   1 more example

   Miles had a cold, he always had a cold, it went unnoticed, went without saying, he had coughing jags and slightly woozy eyes, completely unremarked by people who knew him […]

   1997, Don DeLillo, Underworld, Simon & Schuster, published 2007, Part 4, Chapter 1, p. 396

4. A one-horse cart load, or, in modern times, a truck load, of hay or wood.
5. ScotlandarchaicA leather bag or wallet; (in the plural) saddlebags.

plural Jags

1. informalA Jaguar car.

   "One of the ticket collectors at our local station," observed Mr. Fiennes, "has a Jag."

   1960 February, “The future of B.R. passenger traffic”, in Trains Illustrated, page 76

plural JAGs

1. USabbreviationacronymcountableuncountablegovernmentAcronym of judge advocate general.

   Of the three JAGs who were dismissed, I know Lt. Gen. Charles Plummer and worked with him for more than three years.

   2025 February 24, Frank Kendall, “America Has a Rogue President”, in The New York Times, →ISSN