fag

noun

1. 1

   In textile inspections, a rough or coarse defect in the woven fabric.

2. 2

   A cigarette.

   ‘What about a fag, boys?’

   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.

   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

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

3. 3

   obsoleteThe worst part or end of a thing.

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

noun

1. 1

   archaicA chore: an arduous and tiresome task.

   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.

   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.

2. 2

   historicalA 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.

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

   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.

verb

1. 1

   archaicTo make exhausted, tired out.

2. 2

   archaicTo 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. 3

   historical(of a younger student) To act as a servant for senior students in many British boarding schools. To be the servant in fagging.

4. 4

   historicalTo 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.

5. 5

   archaicTo work hard, especially on menial chores.

   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.

   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.

noun

1. 1

   A 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.”]

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

   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.

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

2. 2

   slangAn effeminate or unusual homosexual man.

3. 3

   An annoying or contemptible person.

   Why did you do that, you fag?

Forms

plural

fags

past tense

fagged

past participle

fagged

present participle

fagging

third person singular

fags