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lag

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English has three distinct words spelled lag.[1]

Pronunciation

lag1 fall behind; delay

Etymology

The verb meaning to fall behind is of uncertain origin: it is recorded from 1530, a little after the noun meaning the last or hindmost person and before the adjective meaning last or slow, and the relation between the three is obscure.[3][4][5] An earlier trace is lag-mon (“the last or hindmost man”), in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, about 1390.[6][5][4] Many dictionaries take it as perhaps of Scandinavian origin,[7][8][5][6][9] comparing Norwegian lagga (“to go slowly”), a Norwegian dialect word.[7][5][4][10][1] The OED notes that in some parts of England children's games used “fog, seg, lag” for “first, second, last”, and that the word may have begun as such an alteration of last;[3] Hoad, Klein, Weekley and the Shorter Oxford also consider this.[11][12][13][14] Etymonline also mentions dialect forms of lack or delay, and Weekley thought it connected with delay.[4][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The last or hindmost person: 1514 according to Barnhart and Merriam-Webster,[5][7] about 1530 in the OED, in Barclay's Egloges.[3] The verb, to fail to keep pace or to fall behind, is first recorded in 1530, in Palsgrave's Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse.[3][5][7]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th and 17th centuries the plural lags meant the dregs left in a vessel,[3][14] and the noun was used once by Shakespeare for the lowest class of people.[3][7] The adjective, last or hindmost, is recorded from 1552,[3][7] and survived mainly in lag end, as in Shakespeare's "the lag end of my life", which Johnson quoted in 1755.[7][15] A lag-tooth was an old name for a wisdom tooth, the last to be cut (1610s).[4] The noun for the condition of falling behind is recorded from 1837,[3][5] and in physics and engineering, for the retardation of a movement or current, from 1855.[3][4] Farmer and Henley noted it as American theatrical slang for a wait, from 1847.[4] Time-lag is attested in radio technology by 1925, and lag time by 1937, of a driver's reflexes.[4] In dialects from Scotland and Ireland to the Midlands the adjective still meant slow or tardy,[16] and in Yorkshire lag was a game of marbles.[16]

Timeline

  • c. 1390 – lag-mon, the last man, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.[6][5]
  • 1514 – noun, the last or hindmost person.[5][7]
  • before 1525 – plural, dregs, lees (obsolete by 1669).[3]
  • 1530 – verb, to fall behind, fail to keep pace.[3][5][7]
  • 1552 – adjective, last, hindmost; belated.[3][7]
  • 1610s – lag-tooth, a wisdom tooth.[4]
  • 1837 – noun, the condition of lagging.[3][5]
  • 1855 – the retardation of a movement or current.[3][4]
  • 1925 – time-lag.[4]
  • 1930 – transitive, to lag behind something.[3]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To fail to keep up; to fall or stay behind, often with behind: The youngest hikers lagged behind the group.[17][7][3]
  2. To become weaker or less intense.[17]
  3. To trail behind something in time or phase, as a current behind a voltage.[3]
  4. In some games, to decide the order of play by rolling marbles towards a line or by hitting billiard balls against the top cushion.[17]

Noun

  1. The act or condition of falling behind or slowing down.[17][3][7]
  2. The interval between two related events; a time lag.[17][3]
  3. In physics, a retardation in a movement or current, or its amount.[3][4]
  4. (rare) The last person in a race, game or line.[3][7]
  5. (obsolete, 1525–1669) In the plural, dregs or lees.[3][7][14]

Adjective

  1. (archaic or dialect) Last or hindmost; late, tardy, as in lag end.[7][3][14]

Word family

  • laggard
  • lagger
  • jet lag
  • time lag

lag2 convict; to imprison

Etymology

The word for a convict is of unknown origin.[3][7][14][11][1][10] The noun comes from an earlier verb that meant to carry off or steal, recorded in 1573, and later to transport a convict or to arrest.[3][1][13][18]

Earliest recorded meaning

To carry off or steal: 1573, in Tusser's Fiue Hundreth Points of Good Husbandry.[3][7]

Semantic evolution

In criminals' slang the verb came to mean to sentence to transportation: Green's Dictionary of Slang quotes a thief's “I am to be legg'd” of 1753, meaning to be transported.[18] The noun followed, first for a term of transportation (1760) and then for a convict;[18][3] the OED's first records of both, and of the verb, are in Vaux's dictionary of flash language of 1819.[3] Lagging was a sentence of transportation, and a lagging matter a crime punishable by it.[18] From 1847 the verb also meant to catch or arrest.[3] The words were later used of imprisonment in general:[7] an old lag, a hardened or habitual prisoner, is recorded from the early 20th century.[14] In Australia a lag was a former convict, especially one transported there.[7]

Timeline

  • 1573 – to carry off, steal (obsolete).[3][7]
  • 1753 – to sentence to transportation.[18]
  • 1760 – noun, a term of transportation.[18]
  • c. 1812 – noun, a convict.[7]
  • 1819 – to transport; a transported convict.[3]
  • 1847 – to catch, arrest.[3]
  • early 20th century – old lag, a hardened prisoner.[14]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (slang, chiefly British) A convict or former convict, especially an old lag, a habitual criminal.[7][14]
  2. (Australia) A former convict, especially one transported to Australia.[7]
  3. (slang) A term of imprisonment, formerly of transportation.[14][3][18]

Verb

  1. (slang) To send to prison; formerly, to transport for a crime.[7][14][3]
  2. (slang, chiefly British) To arrest.[7][14][3]
  3. (obsolete) To carry off; to steal.[3][7][14]

Word family

  • old lag

lag3 barrel stave; insulate

Etymology

The stave of a barrel is probably borrowed from Old Norse lǫgg (“rim of a barrel”),[3][7][12][14] which is recorded only in that sense;[3] Swedish lagg also means a stave,[3][12][7][1][17] as in laggkärl (“a vessel made of staves, cask”).[3] The Shorter Oxford also compares Icelandic laggar and traces the word to the Germanic base of lay.[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

A stave of a barrel: 1659, in Hoole's translation of Comenius's Orbis Sensualium Pictus.[3] Merriam-Webster dates this sense to 1672.[7]

Semantic evolution

From 1847 the word was used for the staves or laths that formed the casing of a steam boiler, a cylinder or a carding machine,[3] and the verb, to cover a boiler or the like with such lags or with felt, followed.[3][7] Ayto notes that the first material used for lagging was wooden laths;[1] later lagging meant any insulating cover.[1][7] The lag screw takes its name from the same word, since it was first used to fasten barrel staves.[17] In Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire dialect a lag was still the stave of a cask, tub or pail.[16]

Timeline

  • 1659 – a stave of a barrel.[3]
  • 1847 – a lath forming the casing of a boiler or cylinder.[3]
  • 1870 – verb, to cover with lags or lagging.[7]
  • 1887 – verb, to cover a boiler with lags or felt, in the OED.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (dialect) A stave of a barrel.[7][3][16]
  2. A slat or strip of wood, felt or other material forming part of a covering for a boiler, pipe or cylinder.[7][3]

Verb

  1. To cover a boiler, pipe or tank with insulating material.[14][7][3]
  2. To fasten with lag screws.[7]

Word family

  • lagging
  • lag screw
  • last

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 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 44 45 46 47 48 49 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  6. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  7. ^ 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 Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  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 Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  16. ^ a b c d 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 d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  18. ^ a b c d e f g Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com