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Etymology and origin of the English word fag

English has three words spelled fag, none of whose origins is entirely clear.[1]

Pronunciation

fag1 toil; schoolboy servant

Confidence
Uncertain
First attested
1530 Palsgrave
Ultimate origin
English flag
Etymology tree of fag1
inherited borrowed derived
English flag
English fag
From the same root · fag1
English flagship ← flag

Etymology

The verb, first "to droop, decline", is of uncertain origin.[3][4][5][6][7] The usual view is that it is an alteration from English flag (“to droop, go limp”);[5][1][8][9] Barnhart notes that this would explain the meaning, though flag is first recorded only in 1545, fifteen years later.[4] Dictionary.com suggests that it came from the drooping loose end of cloth, fagge (see the cigarette sense below).[10] The nouns, a drudge or schoolboy servant and a tiring task, come from the verb.[3][11][5] Johnson derived the verb from Latin fatīgō,[12] and Weekley took the noun as a schoolboy distortion of fatigue.[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

To droop or turn aside from something, in Palsgrave's French–English dictionary of 1530;[4][14] the OED's first quotation, for "to decline in vigour, to tire", is from 1555.[3]

Semantic evolution

In the 18th century the verb took on its active sense, to work hard at something tedious (1772), and then the transitive one, to tire or wear out (1774);[3] Barnhart and Etymonline date the transitive sense to Sir Walter Scott's Journal of 1826.[4][5] The noun followed: a person who does menial tasks for others (1770) and a tiring piece of work (1780).[3][14] In the English public schools a fag was a junior boy who did chores for a senior one,[3][5][7] recorded from 1785 in Etymonline[5] and 1788 in the OED,[3] and a senior boy could fag a junior;[3][5] the custom is now historical.[3] Liberman finds no use of fag for a servant before the last quarter of the 18th century.[15] In school cricket a fag was also a fielder on the boundary.[3] Brain-fag, mental exhaustion, is from 1850,[5] and the British can't be fagged, can't be bothered, from 1927.[3] In Scots and northern English dialect the verb still meant to grow weary or droop.[16]

Timeline

  • 1530 – to droop, swerve from something.[4][14] The OED's first quotation, to decline in strength, is from 1555.[3]
  • 1770 – noun, a person who does menial tasks for others.[3]
  • 1772 – to work hard, toil.[3][17]
  • 1774 – to tire, wear out.[3] Barnhart and Etymonline first find this in 1826.[4][5]
  • 1780 – a tiring task, drudgery.[3][14][18]
  • 1785 – a junior schoolboy who serves a senior.[5][17] The OED's first quotation is from 1788.[3]
  • 1786 – of a senior pupil, to make a junior one his fag.[3]
  • 1806 – to act as a fag.[3][5]
  • 1850 – brain-fag, mental exhaustion.[5]
  • 1927 – can't be fagged, can't be bothered.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (chiefly British, informal) A tiring or boring task; drudgery: Carrying the shopping up four floors is a real fag.[7][19][14]
  2. (British, chiefly historical) A junior pupil at a public school who had to do chores for a senior one.[7][19][3]
  3. A drudge.[19][14]

Verb

  1. To work hard; to toil: She fagged away at the accounts all weekend.[7][19][14]
  2. To make tired; to exhaust, often with out: The long hike fagged us out.[7][19][10]
  3. (British) To act as a fag for a senior pupil, or to make a junior pupil act as one.[7][19][10]
  4. (now rare or dialect) To grow weary; to flag or droop.[14][3][20]

Word family

  • fagged
  • fagging
  • faggery
  • brain fag

fag2 cigarette

Confidence
Established
Formation
Clipping
First attested
1885 Pall Mall Gazette
Ultimate origin
English fag end

Etymology

The cigarette is a clipping from English fag end.[3][19][6][1][9][4] Fag end (1613) is formed on an earlier fagg, something that hangs loose or the coarse end of a piece of cloth, recorded from 1486, which is of unknown origin;[4][3][1][13] the OED takes it as apparently from the verb of homograph 1, and so perhaps related to flag.[3] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster also connect fagge, a knot or flaw in cloth, recorded from 1463.[4][14][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A cigarette, at first especially a cheap one: the OED's first quotation is from the Pall Mall Gazette of 1885.[3] Barnhart and Etymonline date it to 1888,[4][5] and Green's first quotation, from 1888, describes the fag with its harsh paper and bad tobacco.[18]

Semantic evolution

Fag could mean the end of a bale of cloth (1582) and then, figuratively, the last and worst part of anything (before 1627), a sense taken over by fag end.[3][4][1] The cigarette sense was British slang, and Etymonline notes that it first meant especially the butt;[5] the OED records the sense "cigarette butt" from 1897 to 1921.[3] Green's dates the cheap cigarette issued to soldiers to the First World War.[18] The verb, to give someone a cigarette, is recorded from 1926 (Green's has 1918), and to smoke from 1940.[3][18] Hendrickson notes that the cigarette sense is now rarely heard in the United States,[21] and Wiktionary that it is often misunderstood there because of the slur.[2]

Timeline

  • 1486 – fag, something that hangs loose.[4][3]
  • 1582 – the coarse end of a bale of cloth.[3]
  • 1613 – fag-end, the last part of anything.[4][13]
  • 1885 – a cigarette, especially a cheap one.[3] Barnhart and Etymonline date it to 1888.[4][5]
  • 1897 – the butt of a cigarette (obsolete by 1921).[3]
  • 1940 – verb, to smoke.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (chiefly British, informal) A cigarette.[19][14][3][7]

fag3 offensive term for a gay man

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Clipping
First attested
1921 Medical Review of Reviews
Ultimate origin
Anglo-Norman faget
Etymology tree of fag3
inherited borrowed derived
English faggot
English fag

Etymology

The slur is a clipping from English faggot, in the same sense,[3][19][1][5][15][22] which Etymonline records in American slang by 1914.[5] Merriam-Webster calls it probably a shortening of faggot,[17] and the Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives its origin as unknown.[14] For the slur faggot itself Ayto and Etymonline point to the older contemptuous use for a woman, from faggot, a bundle of sticks;[1][5] Liberman suggests the influence of pimp, used both for a boy who did menial jobs and for a bundle of wood,[15] and Etymonline mentions the public-school fag.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A gay man, used with contempt: first recorded in the United States in 1921, in the Medical Review of Reviews.[3][18][14][5]

Semantic evolution

The adjective followed in 1932, and Hemingway used it in a letter of 1933.[3][18] Fag hag, a woman who keeps company with gay men, is recorded from 1969.[5][20] The word is also used as a general insult to any man thought weak or unmanly.[3] Etymonline calls the story that gay men were called faggots because they were burned at the stake an etymological urban legend.[5]

Timeline

  • 1921 – a gay man (offensive).[3][18][14]
  • 1932 – adjective, gay (offensive).[3]
  • 1969 – fag hag.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (slang, offensive) A disparaging term for a gay man.[14][19][20]

Adjective

  1. (slang, offensive) Gay, or relating to gay men.[3][18]

Word family

  • faggy
  • fag hag

Usage notes

In the sense of a gay man the word is offensive and disparaging,[14][19][20] and in North America it is often highly offensive, though some gay people have reclaimed it.[2][21] The senses "cigarette" and "public-school junior" are British.[7][21]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  2. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  8. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  10. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  13. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  15. ^ a b c Liberman, Anatoly (2008), An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
  16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  17. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  18. ^ a b c d e f g h Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  19. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  20. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  21. ^ a b c Hendrickson, Robert (2008), The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 4th ed., New York: Facts on File
  22. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
Cite this entry

“Fag.” Etymologically, 31 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/fag. Accessed 1 Nov. 2026.

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