fag

plural fags

1. USengineeringIn textile inspections, a rough or coarse defect in the woven fabric.
2. AustraliaIrelandUKcolloquialA cigarette.

   ‘What about a fag, boys?’

   1933, Frank Clune, Try Anything Once, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 160

   5 more examples

   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.

   1968 January 25, The Bulletin, Oregon

   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

   1995, Pulp, “Common People”, in Different Class

   He paused, puffed on his cigarette, and struggled with a cough. Bejesus, excuse the language, but the fags'll get me in the end.

   1996, Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes, Scribner

   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.

   2001, Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, Alfred A. Knopf, section 15

   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.’

   2011, Bill Marsh, “A Female on the Board”, in Great Australian Shearing Stories, unnumbered page

   Synonyms: bine, blem, bogie, boagie, butt, cancerette, cancer stick, boon

3. IrelandUKcolloquialobsoleteThe worst part or end of a thing.

   Fag, s. the worst part or end of anything.

   1788, William Perry, editor, The Royal standard English dictionary

plural fags

1. IrelandUKarchaiccolloquialA chore: an arduous and tiresome task.

   Keeping up appearances is a bit of a fag, I grant, but if a girl respects herself it’s up to her not to let herself get slack.

   1923, Agatha Christie, The Murder on the Links

   1 more example

   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.

   1817, Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

2. IrelandUKcolloquialhistoricaleducationA younger student acting as a servant for senior students (potentially in a sexual or abusive way).

   I had the character at ſchool of being the very beſt fag that ever came into it.

   1791, Richard Cumberland, The Observer, volume 4, page 67

   2 more examples

   “He was my fag at Eton,” Warrington said. “I ought to have licked him a little more.”

   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

   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.

   1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, page 18

present singular third person fags · participle present fagging · participle past fagged · past fagged

1. archaiccolloquialtransitiveTo make exhausted, tired out.
2. archaiccolloquialintransitiveTo 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.

3. IrelandUKcolloquialhistoricalintransitiveeducation(of a younger student) To act as a servant for senior students in many British boarding schools. To be the servant in fagging.
4. IrelandUKcolloquialhistoricaltransitiveeducationTo have (a younger student) act as a servant in this way, in fagging.

   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.

   1887, Francis Bacon, Richard Whately, Essays, page 63

5. IrelandUKarchaicintransitiveTo work hard, especially on menial chores.

   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.

   1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC

   1 more example

   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.

   1847, Charlotte Brontë, chapter 1, in Jane Eyre, HTML edition

plural fags

1. CanadaUSendearingoffensivesometimesusuallyvulgarA homosexual man.

   [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.”]

   4 more examples

   In schizophrenics, however, the homosexual outlet is sooner or later ... ideas that strangers call them "cs," "fairy," "woman," "fag," " fruit," etc.). ...

   1926, American Neurological Association with New York Neurological Association et al., Journal of nervous and mental disease, volume 94, page 467

   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.

   1960, John Updike, 'Rabbit, Run', page 111

   A couple of days later, Trisha tells Madelyn there is a rumor going around that she's a fag.

   2006, Lynn Mickelsen, Confusion Turned to Chaos

   ... 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.

   2008, Paul Ryan Brewer, Value war: public opinion and the politics of gay rights, →ISBN, page 60

   1. CanadaUSbroadlyendearingoffensivesometimesusuallyvulgara homosexual person of any gender.
   2. CanadaUSbroadlyendearingoffensivesometimesusuallyvulgara queer person in general.
2. derogatoryoffensiveslangusuallyvulgarAn effeminate or unusual homosexual man.
3. USderogatoryoffensivevulgarAn annoying or contemptible person.

   Why did you do that, you fag?

   Synonyms: assbag, assbreath, assbucket, asschunk, asscunt, assface, assfag, assfaggot