Adjacent Words

Rag definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

RAG, n. [Gr. a torn garment; tear; a rupture, a rock, a crag; to tear asunder.]
1. Any piece of cloth torn from the rest; a tattered cloth, torn or worn till its texture is destroyed. Linen and cotton rags are the chief materials of paper.
2. Garments worn out; proverbially, mean dress.
Drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags. Proverbs 23.
And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
3. A fragment of dress.
RAG. v.t.
To scold; to rail. [Local.]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a small piece of cloth or paper [syn: rag, shred, tag, tag end, tatter]
2: a week at British universities during which side-shows and processions of floats are organized to raise money for charities [syn: rag, rag week]
3: music with a syncopated melody (usually for the piano) [syn: ragtime, rag]
4: newspaper with half-size pages [syn: tabloid, rag, sheet]
5: a boisterous practical joke (especially by college students) v
1: treat cruelly; "The children tormented the stuttering teacher" [syn: torment, rag, bedevil, crucify, dun, frustrate]
2: cause annoyance in; disturb, especially by minor irritations; "Mosquitoes buzzing in my ear really bothers me"; "It irritates me that she never closes the door after she leaves" [syn: annoy, rag, get to, bother, get at, irritate, rile, nark, nettle, gravel, vex, chafe, devil]
3: play in ragtime; "rag that old tune"
4: harass with persistent criticism or carping; "The children teased the new teacher"; "Don't ride me so hard over my failure"; "His fellow workers razzed him when he wore a jacket and tie" [syn: tease, razz, rag, cod, tantalize, tantalise, bait, taunt, twit, rally, ride]
5: censure severely or angrily; "The mother scolded the child for entering a stranger's car"; "The deputy ragged the Prime Minister"; "The customer dressed down the waiter for bringing cold soup" [syn: call on the carpet, take to task, rebuke, rag, trounce, reproof, lecture, reprimand, jaw, dress down, call down, scold, chide, berate, bawl out, remonstrate, chew out, chew up, have words, lambaste, lambast]
6: break into lumps before sorting; "rag ore"

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Etymology: Middle English ragge, from Old English *ragg, from Old Norse r?gg tuft, shagginess Date: 14th century 1. a. a waste piece of cloth b. plural clothes usually in poor or ragged condition c. clothing <the rag trade> 2. something resembling a rag 3. newspaper; especially a sleazy newspaper II. noun Etymology: Middle English ragge Date: 14th century 1. any of various hard rocks 2. a large roofing slate that is rough on one side III. transitive verb (ragged; ragging) Etymology: origin unknown Date: 1739 1. to rail at ; scold 2. torment, tease IV. noun Date: 1864 chiefly British an outburst of boisterous fun; also prank V. noun Etymology: short for ragtime Date: 1897 a composition in ragtime

Oxford Reference Dictionary

1. n. 1 a a torn, frayed, or worn piece of woven material. b one of the irregular scraps to which cloth etc. is reduced by wear and tear. 2 (in pl.) old or worn clothes. 3 (collect.) scraps of cloth used as material for paper, stuffing, etc. 4 derog. a a newspaper. b a flag, handkerchief, curtain, etc. 5 (usu. with neg.) the smallest scrap of cloth etc. (not a rag to cover him). 6 an odd scrap; an irregular piece. 7 a jagged projection, esp. on metal. Phrases and idioms: in rags 1 much torn. 2 in old torn clothes. rag-and-bone man Brit. an itinerant dealer in old clothes, furniture, etc. rag-bag 1 a bag in which scraps of fabric etc. are kept for use. 2 a miscellaneous collection. 3 sl. a sloppily-dressed woman. rag bolt a bolt with barbs to keep it tight when it has been driven in. rag book a children's book made of untearable cloth. rag doll a stuffed doll made of cloth. rag paper paper made from rags. rag-picker a collector and seller of rags. rags to riches poverty to affluence. rag trade colloq. the business of designing, making, and selling women's clothes. Etymology: ME, prob. back-form. f. RAGGED 2. n. & v. sl. --n. Brit. 1 a fund-raising programme of stunts, parades, and entertainment organized by students. 2 colloq. a prank. 3 a a rowdy celebration. b a noisy disorderly scene. --v. (ragged, ragging) 1 tr. tease; torment; play rough jokes on. 2 tr. scold; reprove severely. 3 intr. Brit. engage in rough play; be noisy and riotous. Etymology: 18th c.: orig. unkn.: cf. BALLYRAG 3. n. 1 a large coarse roofing-slate. 2 any of various kinds of hard coarse sedimentary stone that break into thick slabs. Etymology: ME: orig. unkn., but assoc. with RAG(1) 4. n. Mus. a ragtime composition or tune. Etymology: perh. f. RAGGED: see RAGTIME

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Rag Rag, v. t. 1. (Music) To play or compose (a piece, melody, etc.) in syncopated time. [Colloq.] 2. To dance to ragtime music, esp. in some manner considered indecorous. [Colloq. or Slang]

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Rag Rag, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Ragged; p. pr. & vb. n. Ragging.] To become tattered. [Obs.]

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Rag Rag, v. t. [Cf. Icel. r[ae]gja to calumniate, OHG, ruogen to accuse, G. r["u]gen to censure, AS. wr[=e]gan, Goth. wr[=o]hjan to accuse.] To scold or rail at; to rate; to tease; to torment; to banter. [Prov. Eng.] --Pegge.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Rag Rag, n. [OE. ragge, probably of Scand, origin; cf. Icel. r["o]gg rough hair. Cf. Rug, n.] 1. A piece of cloth torn off; a tattered piece of cloth; a shred; a tatter; a fragment. Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tossed, And fluttered into rags. --Milton. Not having otherwise any rag of legality to cover the shame of their cruelty. --Fuller. 2. pl. Hence, mean or tattered attire; worn-out dress. And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm. --Dryden. 3. A shabby, beggarly fellow; a ragamuffin. The other zealous rag is the compositor. --B. Jonson. Upon the proclamation, they all came in, both tag and rag. --Spenser. 4. (Geol.) A coarse kind of rock, somewhat cellular in texture. 5. (Metal Working) A ragged edge. 6. A sail, or any piece of canvas. [Nautical Slang] Our ship was a clipper with every rag set. --Lowell. Rag bolt, an iron pin with barbs on its shank to retain it in place. Rag carpet, a carpet of which the weft consists of narrow of cloth sewed together, end to end. Rag dust, fine particles of ground-up rags, used in making papier-mach['e] and wall papers. Rag wheel. (a) A chain wheel; a sprocket wheel. (b) A polishing wheel made of disks of cloth clamped together on a mandrel. Rag wool, wool obtained by tearing woolen rags into fine bits, shoddy.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Rag Rag, v. t. 1. To break (ore) into lumps for sorting. 2. To cut or dress roughly, as a grindstone.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(rags) 1. A rag is a piece of old cloth which you can use to clean or wipe things. He was wiping his hands on an oily rag. N-VAR 2. Rags are old torn clothes. There were men, women and small children, some dressed in rags. N-PLURAL 3. People refer to a newspaper as a rag when they have a poor opinion of it. (INFORMAL) 'This man Tom works for a local rag,' he said. N-COUNT [disapproval] 4. see also ragged 5. You use rags to riches to describe the way in which someone quickly becomes very rich after they have been quite poor. His was a rags-to-riches story and people admire that. PHRASE 6. If you describe something as a red rag to a bull, you mean that it is certain to make a particular person or group very angry. (mainly BRIT) This sort of information is like a red rag to a bull for the tobacco companies. PHRASE: v-link PHR, like PHR

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

Plural in Pr 23:21, "Drowsiness will clothe a man with rags" (qera'im "torn garment"; compare 1Ki 11:30), and figuratively in Isa 64:6 the King James Version, "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags," in the sense of "tattered clothing" (beghedh, the Revised Version (British and American) "garment"). In Jer 38:11,12 the American Standard Revised Version translates cechabhah, as "rag" (the King James Version, the English Revised Version "old cast clout"), while the King James Version, the English Revised Version use "rotten rag" for melach (the American Standard Revised Version "worn-out garment"). Both cechabhah and melach mean "worn out."

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Shred, tatter, fragment, bit, patch. 2. [pl.] Mean attire, mean dress.

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

Bank notes. Money in general. The cove has no rag; the fellow has no money.

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

A farthing.

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

To abuse, and tear to rags the characters of the persons abused. She gave him a good ragging, or ragged him off heartily.

Moby Thesaurus

abuse, acid rock, act drop, afterglow, afterimage, andante tempo, apparel, array, asbestos, asbestos board, attire, avant-garde jazz, backdrop, balance, ballroom music, banter, bark at, baste, batten, bawl out, beat, bebop, bedizenment, berate, betongue, blacken, boltrope, bones, boogie-woogie, bop, border, butt, butt end, candle ends, canvas, carpet, chaff, chew, chew out, clew, cloth, clothes, clothing, compound time, costume, coulisse, counterweight, country rock, cringle, crowd of sail, culm, curtain, curtain board, cyclorama, daily, daily newspaper, dance music, dances, deadwood, debris, decor, deride, detritus, dishwater, draff, drapery, dregs, dress, dressing, drop, drop curtain, duds, duple time, dust, earing, end, etoffe, execrate, extra, extra edition, fabric, fag end, fashion, fatigues, feathers, felt, fig, filings, fire curtain, flat, flipper, folk rock, fool, foot, fore-and-aft sail, fossil, frock, fulminate against, fun, garb, garbage, garment, garments, gash, gazette, gear, goods, gown, grin at, guise, habiliment, habit, hanging, hard rock, haze, head, hogwash, hold in derision, holdover, hot jazz, husks, investiture, investment, jape, jaw, jazz, jest, jive, joke, jolly, josh, kid, lace, largo, laugh at, laugh to scorn, leavings, leech, lees, leftovers, linen, load with reproaches, luff, mainstream jazz, make fun of, make game of, make merry with, march tempo, material, mixed times, musical suite, muslin, napery, national newspaper, needle, neighborhood newspaper, news, newspaper, newspaper of record, odds and ends, offal, offscourings, old clothes, orts, pan, paper, parings, pillory, plain sail, play jazz, point at, poke fun at, potsherds, press of sail, presto, put on, put one on, rags, ragtime, rail, rail at, raiment, rally, rant, raspings, rate, rave against, razz, reduced sail, reef point, reefed sail, refuse, relics, remainder, remains, remnant, residue, residuum, rest, revile, rhythm-and-blues, rib, ride, ridicule, roach, roast, robe, robes, rock, rock-and-roll, rubato, rubbish, ruins, rump, sail, sawdust, scene, scenery, scourings, scrap iron, scraps, screen, scum, sextuple time, shadow, shards, shavings, sheet, side scene, silk, simple time, slack, slag, slop, slops, smile at, snicker at, snigger at, special, special edition, sportswear, square sail, stage screw, straw, stubble, stuff, stump, style, suite, suite of dances, survival, sweepings, swill, swing, syncopate, syncopated music, syncopation, syncope, tab, tableau, tabloid, tares, tatters, tease, teaser, tempo, tempo rubato, textile, textile fabric, texture, the new music, threads, three-quarter time, thunder against, time, time pattern, timing, tissu, tissue, togs, toilette, tongue-lash, tormentor, trace, transformation, transformation scene, trim, triple time, triplet, twit, two-four time, vestige, vestment, vesture, vilify, vituperate, waltz time, wastage, waste, waste matter, wastepaper, wear, wearing apparel, weave, web, weeds, weekly, weekly newspaper, weft, wing, wingcut, woodcut, woof, wool, yell at, yelp at