lag

1. Late.

   Some tardy cripple bore the countermand, / That came too lag to see him buried.

   1592, William Shakespeare, King Richard III

2. obsoleteLast; long-delayed.

   the lag end of my life

   c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]

3. Last made; hence, made of refuse; inferior.

   We know your thoughts of us, that laymen are lag souls, and rubbish of remaining clay.

   1690, John Dryden, Don Sebastian, King of Portugal

plural lags

1. countableA gap, a delay; an interval created by something not keeping up; a latency.

   During the Second World War, for instance, the Washington Senators had a starting rotation that included four knuckleball pitchers. But, still, I think that some of that was just a generational lag.

   2004 May 10, The New Yorker Online,

   1 more example

   Although this work is now presented to the world at large, people who read through it before publication severally raised some issues that should be addressed. These resolve around the lag between the field research and the publication of the monograph, a period of rather more than two decades; the use or non-use of various academic forms of terminology, frames of reference, modes of analysis, or "theoretical paradigms"; and my use of the present tense to describe a place that is most certainly not that way now.

   1995, Donald R. DeGlopper, “Introduction”, in Lukang: Commerce and Community in a Chinese City, State University of New York Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 5

2. uncountableDelay; latency.

   Latency, or lag, is an unavoidable part of Internet gaming.

   2002, Marty Cortinas, Clifford Colby, The Macintosh bible

   2 more examples

   Whatever the symptom, lag is a drag. But what causes it? One cause is delays in getting the data from your PC to the game server.

   1999, Loyd Case, Building the ultimate game PC

   When the lag is low, 2 or 3 seconds perhaps, Internet chatters seem reasonably content.

   2001, Patricia M. Wallace, The psychology of the Internet

   Synonyms: latency

3. IrelandUKarchaiccountableslanguncountableOne sentenced to transportation for a crime.
4. IrelandUKcountableslanguncountableA prisoner, a criminal.

   On both these occasions I had ended up behind the bars, and you might suppose that an old lag like myself would have been getting used to it by now.

   1934, P. G. Wodehouse, Thank You, Jeeves

   1 more example

   He sat with his great head tipped forward, scowling with a lag's sullenness, and I swear he had closed off his hearing with his thinking and hadn't heard us coming. 'Father,' said Pym.

   1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy

5. countableslanguncountableA period of imprisonment.

   I wasn't scared any more; the second lag wasn't easy, but I wasn't really scared of anything. […] So in my later lags, when I walked into prison everyone had heard about me.

   2017, Anna Leask, Behind Bars: Real-life stories from inside New Zealand's prisons

6. countableuncountableball gamesA method of deciding which player is to start. Both players simultaneously strike a cue ball from the baulk line to hit the top cushion and rebound down the table; the player whose ball finishes closest to the baulk cushion wins.
7. countableuncountableOne who lags; that which comes in last.

   the lag of all the flock

   1725, Homer, “Book IX”, in [Alexander Pope], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], volume II, London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC, page 226, line 526

8. countableuncountableThe fag-end; the rump; hence, the lowest class.

   The reſt of your Fees, O Gods, the Senators of Athens, together with the common lagge of People, what is amiſſe in them, you Gods, make ſuteable for deſtruction.

   c. 1605–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vi], page 89, column 2

9. countableuncountableA stave of a cask, drum, etc.; especially (engineering) one of the narrow boards or staves forming the covering of a cylindrical object, such as a boiler, or the cylinder of a carding machine or steam engine.
10. USabbreviationclippingcountableuncountablebusinessClipping of lag screw.
11. countableuncountableA bird, the greylag.

present singular third person lags · participle present lagging · participle past lagged · past lagged

1. To fail to keep up (the pace), to fall behind.

   1717, The Metamorphoses of Ovid translated into English verse under the direction of Sir Samuel Garth by John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, William Congreve and other eminent hands While he, whose tardy feet had lagg'd behind, / Was doom'd the sad reward of death to find.

   4 more examples

   Behind her farre away a Dwarfe did lag, / That lasie seemd in being ever last, / Or wearied with bearing of her bag / Of needments at his backe.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “(please specify the book), Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

   Lazy beast! / Why last art thou now? Thou hast never used / To lag thus hindmost

   1616, George Chapman, The Odysseys of Homer

   Brown skeletons of leaves that lag / My forest-brook along

   1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in seven parts

   Over the next fifty years, by most indicators dear to economists, the country remained the richest in the world. But by another set of numbers—longevity and income inequality—it began to lag behind Northern Europe and Japan.

   2004 April 5, The New Yorker,

2. To cover (for example, pipes) with felt strips or similar material.

   Outside seems old enough: / Red brick, lagged pipes, and someone walking by it / Out to the car park, free.

   c. 1974, Philip Larkin, The Building

   1 more example

   Spun glass mattresses are used for lagging the boiler, which has three Ross pop safety valves on the front ring.

   1941 April, “British Locomotive Developments”, in Railway Magazine, page 173

3. informalcomputingTo respond slowly.

   My phone is starting to lag.

4. UKarchaicslangTo transport as a punishment for crime.

   She lags us if we poach.

   1847, Thomas De Quincey, Secret Societies"

5. slangTo arrest or apprehend.

   If a fellow gave them trouble being lagged they let him have it hot and heavy in the bridewell.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 8: Laestrygonians]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 155

   1 more example

   "We must get the old dear out," said Lord Roxton to Malone. "He'll be had for manslaughter if we don't. What I mean, he's not responsible - he'll sock someone and be lagged for it."

   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

6. transitiveTo slacken

   Interest in the scandal will never lag.

   1 more example

   The weight would lagge thee that art wont to flye.

   1632, Thomas Heywood, The Iron Age

comparative more LAG · superlative most LAG

1. card gamesLoose (inclined to play many starting hands, including weak ones) and aggressive (inclined to raise often).