dreg

Meanings

noundreg (countable and uncountable, plural dregs)

countablein pluralsingularuncountablesingular of dregs (“sediment in a liquid”)
to the last dreg
4 more examples
What makes this pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?
c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]
O! be the cup of joy to thee consign'd, / Of joy unmix'd, without a dreg behind!
1768, William Hayley, “On the Fear of Death, An Epistle to a Lady”, in Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects, published 1818
Fear and trauma may drain to the last dreg the dischargeable nervous energy, and, therefore, the greatest possible exhaustion may be produced by fear and trauma.
1915, George Washington Crile, “address delivered at the Massachusetts General Hospital 15 Oct 1910”, in The Origin and Nature of Emotions
“Ay, thou doubter! Ay thou disbelieving dreg!”
1970, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 190

Origin

Proto-Indo-European*dʰrā́ks“sediment”
Proto-Germanic*dragjō
Old Norsedregg“sediment”
Englishdreg

Borrowed from Old Norse dregg (“sediment”), from Proto-Germanic *dragjō (whence also Icelandic dregg, Swedish drägg), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrā́ks (“sediment”); see also Latin fraces (“lees of oil”), Albanian ndrag (“to make dirty, foul”), dra (“sediments of dairy products or liquids”).

More words from Old Norse, Proto-Germanic, Proto-Indo-European

Full word history & related roots →