fag-end

plural fag-ends · alternative fag end

1. literallyThe unsmoked end of a cigarette or cigar.
2. IndiabroadlyfigurativelyThe last remnant.

   He was out of his mind, completely and for ever mad, with this sudden shock coming upon the fag-end of his endurance.

   1898 September, Joseph Conrad, “Youth: a Narrative”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXIV, number DCCCCXCV, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publication Co., page 315, column 1

   3 more examples

   And though the annals of the period do not shew us that there was less ale drawn, or less canary called for; men got dry with the heat of polemical discussion, and drunk with a text, not the fag end of a ballad, in their mouths; and people made a sort of morality of straight hair, long faces, and sad-coloured garments.

   1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 190

   He wanted to drop the gentleman and go down into the ranks, beginning on the lowest rung of the ladder, where no one would know of his disgrace or mind it if he did know; his father and mother on the other hand would wish him to clutch on to the fag-end of gentility at a starvation salary and with no prospect of advancement.

   1873–1884 (date written), Samuel Butler, chapter LXVII, in R[ichard] A[lexander] Streatfeild, editor, The Way of All Flesh, London: Grant Richards, published 1903, →OCLC, page 300

   But spatchcocked into the proceedings at the fag-end of the morning was a crisp and useful debate on toxic substances.

   1981, Tam Dalyell, New Scientist, 22nd Oct. issue, Fresh Air at Brighton, page 265

   Synonyms: tag end, tail end

3. broadlyfigurativelyThe frayed end of a length of cloth or rope.