scrag

plural scrags

1. archaicA thin or scrawny person or animal.First known use the 16th c.

   In any event he might have wakened the long scrag by so doing.

   1946, Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

2. archaicThe lean end of a neck of mutton; the scrag end.

   The butcher and the porkman painted up only the leanest scrags of meat; the baker, the coarsest of meagre loaves.

   2007, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, Penguin, →ISBN, page 34

3. archaicThe neck, especially of a sheep.
4. ScotlandA scrog.

   As they entered the foothills they came upon a dusty old diligence with six horses in the traces grazing the dry grass in a fold among the barren scrag.

   1985, Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian or The Evening of Redness in the West, Vintage International, →ISBN, page 120

5. UKderogatoryslangA chav or ned; a stereotypically loud and aggressive person of lower social class.
6. AustraliaderogatoryslangA rough or unkempt woman.

   Get a life, you stupid scrag.

   2003 June 2, Peter Lucas, “The Chief takes a hit”, in alt.ozdebate (Usenet)

   2 more examples

   The large guy said that he couldnt sit down the front because of an eye condition, and she said, out loud, "too bad, go down the front". This was all heard by most of the crowd, 1 guy called her a bitch, i spoke out loud "what a scrag" which her boyfriend heard, he turned around agro like to defend her, when another guy yelled out "if you get agro about that son, ill be over there to show your girlfriend some manners", to which he promplty sat down :-), but after that she put her feet up on the seat in front of her !!

   1998 June 9, Shane, “feed up with noise in cinemas”, in aus.films (Usenet)

   Post scrag fight, Buffy is sweetness and light in her cardy and teeny tiny handbag (plus blonde hair) contrasting with Faith who is lying in bed with her kill-me-thrill-me cutoff shorts (plus brunette hair).

   1999 December 18, Kenny, “The Observer AND the Times: Episode 3.7 Revelations”, in aus.tv.buffy (Usenet)

7. A ragged, stunted tree or branch.

present singular third person scrags · participle present scragging · participle past scragged · past scragged

1. colloquialobsoleteTo hang on a gallows, or to choke, garotte, or strangle.

   An enthusiastic mob will scrag me to a certainty the day war breaks out.

   1899, Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne, “Atoms of Empire”, in Pall Mall Magazine

2. To harass; to manhandle.

   1 more example

   '...I urged him ... to ... try the Ickenham System ... a little thing I knocked together in my bachelor days ... it has a good many points in common with all-in wrestling and osteopathy. I generally recommend it to diffident wooers and it always works like magic...' Johnny stared. 'You mean you told McMurdo to … scrag her?'

   1958, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 15, in Cocktail Time

3. To destroy or kill.

   But they'll scrag you for it, you know, if you do. They scrag anyone who speaks to me.

   2009, Steve Augarde, Celandine, →ISBN, page 162

   1 more example

   [...] I went out lookin' for a line of retreat for my men. A man found me. I abolished him—privatim—scragged him.

   1897 May, Rudyard Kipling, “Slaves of the Lamp. Part II.”, in Stalky & Co., London: Macmillan & Co., published 1899, →OCLC, page 258