shag

shag¹ rough hair, nap, tobacco

Etymology

The word for rough matted hair is inherited from Old English sceacga (“hair of the head”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Proto-Germanic *skaggô.^[1] It is cognate with Old Norse skegg (“beard”) and Swedish skägg (“beard”),^[7][3][8][9] and related to Old English sceaga (“coppice”), the source of shaw,^{[3][4][5][10]} and perhaps to Old Norse skagi (“cape, headland”) and skaga (“to project”),^[7][3] which suggests an underlying sense "something that sticks out".^[11][7] The word is not recorded between Old English and the 16th century,^{[7][5][10][12]} so Etymonline calls it only perhaps the same word, while Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged assume an unrecorded Middle English *shagge.^[7][6][13] The bird name, recorded from 1566, is perhaps a use of this word for the bird's shaggy crest.^{[3][4][14][11][10][12]} The adjective, shaggy, and the verb, to be or make shaggy, were formed from the noun in the 1590s,^[3][6] as was shaggy.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The hair of the head: in an Old English glossary, where sceacga glosses Latin coma, about 1050.^[2][6][3] The first record after Old English is from 1592, in a Durham will, of a cloth with a velvet nap on one side.^[3][6][7]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline dates the sense "rough, matted hair or wool" from about 1600,^[7] and the OED a mass of matted hair from 1607, the nap of cloth from before 1661, down on plants from 1774 and a tangled mass of shrubs or trees from 1836.^[3] Cowper used it figuratively in 1785 for roughness of manner.^[3] A strong tobacco cut into fine shreds was called shag from 1789, first in an Act of Parliament;^[3][7] Hoad takes it from the adjective, as in shag tobacco.^[5] Garments, rugs and mats of shaggy material were shags from 1634 to 1854,^[3] and in the 20th century the word was revived for carpets and rugs with a long, rough pile.^[7][3] In Australia the cormorant gave the phrase like a shag on a rock, isolated or exposed, from 1845.^[3][15] The dialects had many compounds, such as shag-eared and shag-foal, and the name of the cormorant was used from Shetland and the Isle of Man to Sussex and Cornwall, in Devon and Cornwall also as shagga.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1050 – the Old English form, the hair of the head.^[6][2]
• 1566 – a cormorant, especially the crested cormorant.^[3]
• 1592 – a cloth with a velvet nap on one side.^[3][6][7]
• 1593 – adjective, having shaggy hair, in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis.^[3]
• 1596 – verb, to be shaggy, in Spenser's Faerie Queene.^[3][6]
• 1607 – a mass of matted hair.^[3]
• before 1661 – the long, coarse nap of cloth.^[3]
• 1785 – figurative, roughness of manner.^[3]
• 1789 – a strong tobacco cut into fine shreds.^[3][7]
• 1845 – a shag on a rock, in Australia, the type of someone isolated or exposed.^[3]
• 1946 – a carpet or rug with a long nap.^[7] The OED's first record of this use is from 1951.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A long, rough nap or pile on cloth or carpet; also, a carpet or rug with such a pile: a lime-green shag in the den.^[13][3][4]
2. A shaggy, tangled mass of hair, wool or fibre.^[13][3]
3. A tangled mass of bushes or trees; a thicket.^[13][3]
4. A layered, shaggy haircut.^[13][17]
5. A strong, coarse tobacco cut into fine shreds.^[13][3][5]
6. A crested cormorant of European coasts; in Australia and New Zealand, any of various cormorants.^[3][4][18]

Adjective

1. Shaggy; of a carpet or rug, having a long, rough pile.^[13][4]

Verb

1. To make rough or shaggy; also, to hang in shaggy masses.^[13][3]

Word family

• shaggy
• shagbark
• shaglike
• shaggy-dog story

shag² to have sex

Etymology

The word for having sex is of unknown origin.^[3][11][14] It is perhaps from Middle English shaggen (“to toss about, shake”), an obsolete verb recorded from about 1380 to 1572,^{[3][7][19][13]} itself of obscure origin and probably related to shake or shog.^[7][3][13] The Middle English Dictionary lists shaggen as a form of shoggen (“to shake”),^[20] Merriam-Webster Unabridged calls the sexual verb earlier argot, probably going back to it,^[13] and Green's Dictionary of Slang and Ayto also point towards shake.^[21][11] The Shorter Oxford puts both meanings under one verb, with a query.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

To have sex with someone: 1770, in T. Jefferson's Memorandum Books.^[3] The 1989 edition of the OED, Etymonline and the New Partridge dated it to 1788,^[22][7][23] and the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins thinks it is probably older.^[19] Green's Dictionary of Slang finds it implied in shagging in 1680–1 and has it next in 1772.^[21]

Semantic evolution

The noun, an act of sex, appears in Green's Dictionary of Slang from 1788, in the bawdy song "The Plenipotentiary",^[21] but in the OED only from 1937, in Partridge's Dictionary of Slang.^[3] From 1933, in M. Lowry's Ultramarine, the verb was also used in curses and exclamations, like fuck.^[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged labels the verb chiefly British, informal and usually vulgar,^[13] and Dolan records it as colloquial Irish English.^[24]

Timeline

• 1770 – to have sex (with).^[3] The 1989 edition of the OED and Etymonline date it to 1788.^[22][7]
• 1788 – noun, an act of sex.^[21] The OED's first record of the noun is from 1937.^[3]
• 1933 – used in curses and exclamations.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (chiefly British, vulgar slang) To have sexual intercourse with someone.^[13][25][4]

Noun

1. (chiefly British, vulgar slang) An act of sexual intercourse.^{[3][4][21][25]}

shag³ to chase, to wander off

Etymology

The word for chasing or wandering off is of unknown origin.^[3][13] The OED thinks it possibly connected with the obsolete verb meaning to shake, and doubts that its two senses belong together.^[3][7] The Century Dictionary, cited by Etymonline, took the baseball use as a sense of a verb "to rove about".^[7] Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Unabridged (for the sense "to lope") and the Dictionary of American Regional English compare or derive it from shack,^[12][13][26] which Etymonline suggests in the sense "a disreputable fellow", short for shake-rag;^[7] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate takes the sense "to lope" as a variant of shog.^[27]

Earliest recorded meaning

To make off; to wander aimlessly: 1851, in a glossary of Gloucestershire words.^[3][16] The English Dialect Dictionary records it in Gloucestershire and East Anglia for stealing away or slinking off, usually with away.^[16]

Semantic evolution

In American English the verb came to mean to chase, and especially to chase and return a ball hit out of play: Merriam-Webster's Collegiate dates this from 1896,^[27] and the Dictionary of American Regional English finds it in 1910 in western New York, for playing in the outfield in boys' ball games and returning the ball.^[26] In baseball it is used for catching fly balls in practice, recorded by 1913.^[3][7][13] The same dictionary also records the senses to stroll or rove about and to fetch or run an errand.^[26] In underworld slang, Green's Dictionary of Slang has the verb from 1914 for "to identify, to expose", deriving it from the Gloucestershire verb.^[21]

Timeline

• 1851 – to make off; to wander aimlessly.^[3][16]
• 1896 – to chase and return a ball.^[27] The Dictionary of American Regional English has it from 1910, in western New York.^[26]
• 1913 – to chase; in baseball, to catch fly balls.^[3][7]
• 1914 – to move along at an easy lope.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. To chase after something; especially, to retrieve balls hit out of play, or to catch fly balls in baseball practice: The rookies shagged flies before the game.^[13][27][3]
2. To chase away.^[13][27]
3. To fetch something; to run an errand.^[13][26]
4. To move along at an easy lope.^[13]
5. (slang) To make off; to wander about aimlessly.^[3][26]

shag⁴ dance

Etymology

The word for the dance is of uncertain origin.^[3][4][13] The OED tentatively derives it from a verb shag, the Shorter Oxford probably from the verb that meant to shake and to have sex,^[3][4] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged calls it probably from shag without saying which.^[13] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate puts the verb "to dance the shag" under a variant of shog.^[27] Etymonline mentions the dance under the sexual verb, beside “shake it” in American blues slang of the 1920s, said to refer to dancing.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A dance popular in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s, with vigorous hopping from one foot to the other: 1932, as the title of a jazz piece.^[3][13]

Semantic evolution

The verb "to dance the shag" followed in 1939, in Ramsey and Smith's Jazzmen.^[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged now uses the noun for any of various dances of the southern United States with lively footwork and little movement of the upper body.^[13]

Timeline

• 1932 – a dance with vigorous hopping from one foot to the other.^[3][13]
• 1939 – verb, to dance the shag.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of several dances of the southern United States with lively footwork and little movement of the upper body; originally, a 1930s dance of hopping from one foot to the other.^[13][3][27]

Verb

1. To dance the shag.^[13][3]