fag
fag Lexical Profile
fag Game Scores & Validity
• noun
British A cigarette (informal slang).
"He stepped outside the pub for a quick fag before the rain started."
North American A contemptuous and offensive slang term for a gay man.
"The league imposed a strict ban on players using homophobic slurs like fag on the field."
British A tedious, exhausting, or unwelcome task or chore (informal).
"Walking all the way up that steep hill with heavy groceries was a real fag."
British Historically at traditional British public schools, a junior pupil required to perform minor domestic duties for a senior pupil.
"In the nineteenth-century novel, the young boy served as a fag for the head prefect."
• verb
British To work hard and become exhausted; or to tire or wear someone out through strenuous effort (often used with 'out').
"The long climb through the muddy pass completely fagged the hikers out."
British To act as a junior servant or perform menial chores for a senior pupil at a traditional British boarding school.
"First-year students were formerly expected to fag for the sixth-formers."
Word Nuance & Usage
In British and Commonwealth English, 'fag' is common, inoffensive informal slang for a cigarette or a tedious chore. In North American English, however, it is almost exclusively recognized as a highly offensive derogatory slur for a gay man (shortened from 'faggot'), creating a major trans-Atlantic register trap.
• Rhymes for fag
Word Origin & Etymology
Dating to the 16th century, the verb 'fag' originally meant 'to droop or flap' (possibly a variant of 'flag'), which evolved into meanings of tiring work, a junior schoolboy performing chores, and a cigarette (from 'fag-end', the coarse remnant of cloth). The North American derogatory sense is a 20th-century shortening of 'faggot'.
Usage Trend
Historical frequency of usage in published text.