Word.ws English Dictionary

fag

UK/fæɡ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/faɡ/

fag noun: in textile inspections, a rough or coarse defect in the woven fabric.

Noun (1)

fag (plural fags)

  1. (US) In textile inspections, a rough or coarse defect in the woven fabric.
  2. (Australia, Ireland, UK, colloquial) A cigarette.
    • ‘What about a fag, boys?’1933, Frank Clune, Try Anything Once, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 160
    • He′d Phase Out Fag Industry
      Los Angeles (UPI) - A UCLA professor has called for the phasing out of the cigarette industry by converting tobacco acres to other crops.1968 January 25, The Bulletin, Oregon
  3. (Ireland, UK, colloquial, obsolete) The worst part or end of a thing.
    • Fag, s. the worst part or end of anything.1788, William Perry, editor, The Royal standard English dictionary

Noun (2)

fag (plural fags)

  1. (Ireland, UK, archaic, colloquial) A chore: an arduous and tiresome task.
    • We are sadly off in the country; not but what we have very good shops in Salisbury, but it is so far to go—eight miles is a long way; Mr. Allen says it is nine, measured nine; but I am sure it cannot be more than eight; and it is such a fag—I come back tired to death.1817, Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
    • Keeping up appearances is a bit of a fag, I grant, but if a girl respects herself it’s up to her not to let herself get slack.1923, Agatha Christie, The Murder on the Links
  2. (Ireland, UK, colloquial, historical) A younger student acting as a servant for senior students (potentially in a sexual or abusive way).
    • I had the character at ſchool of being the very beſt fag that ever came into it.1791, Richard Cumberland, The Observer, volume 4, page 67
    • “He was my fag at Eton,” Warrington said. “I ought to have licked him a little more.”1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC

Verb

fag (third-person singular simple present fags, present participle fagging, simple past and past participle fagged)

  1. (archaic, colloquial, transitive) To make exhausted, tired out.
  2. (archaic, colloquial, intransitive) To droop; to tire.
    • a. 1829, G. Mackenzie, Lives, quoted in 1829, "Fag", entry in The London Encyclopaedia: Or, Universal Dictionary, Volume 9, page 12,
      Creighton with-held his force 'till the Italian began to fag, and then brought him to the ground.
  3. (Ireland, UK, colloquial, historical, intransitive) (of a younger student) To act as a servant for senior students in many British boarding schools. To be the servant in fagging.
  4. (Ireland, UK, colloquial, historical, transitive) To have (a younger student) act as a servant in this way, in fagging.
    • It is everywhere observed that a liberated slave is apt to make a merciless master, and that boys who have been cruelly fagged at school are cruel faggers.1887, Francis Bacon, Richard Whately, Essays, page 63
  5. (Ireland, UK, archaic, intransitive) To work hard, especially on menial chores.
    • This state of things should have been to me a paradise of peace, accustomed as I was to a life of ceaseless reprimand and thankless fagging; but, in fact, my racked nerves were now in such a state that no calm could soothe, and no pleasure excite them agreeably.1847, Charlotte Brontë, chapter 1, in Jane Eyre, HTML edition
    • I walked about the streets where the best shops for ladies were, I haunted the Bazaar like an unquiet spirit, I fagged through the Park again and again, long after I was quite knocked up.1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC

Noun (3)

fag (plural fags)

  1. (Canada, US, endearing, offensive, sometimes, usually) A homosexual man.
    • [1921 John Lind, The Female Impersonators (Historical Documentation of American Slang v. 1, A-G, edited by Jonathan E. Lighter (New York: Random House, 1994) page 716.
      Androgynes known as “fairies,” “fags,” or “brownies.”]
    • In schizophrenics, however, the homosexual outlet is sooner or later ... ideas that strangers call them "cs," "fairy," "woman," "fag," " fruit," etc.). ...1926, American Neurological Association with New York Neurological Association et al., Journal of nervous and mental disease, volume 94, page 467
    1. (Canada, US, broadly, endearing, offensive, sometimes) a homosexual person of any gender.
    2. (Canada, US, broadly, endearing, offensive, sometimes) a queer person in general.
  2. (derogatory, offensive, slang, usually, vulgar) An effeminate or unusual homosexual man.
  3. (US, derogatory, offensive, vulgar) An annoying or contemptible person.
    • Why did you do that, you fag?

fag meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

fag in Hindi

homosexual man
गाँडू gāṅḍū

fag in Marathi

फाॅग

fag in Urdu

homosexual man
گانڈو gāṅḍū

fag in Bengali

ফ্যাগ
More languagesFewer languages
fag in Malayalam
വിരസമായ ജോലി, കഠിനമായി അധ്വാനിക്കുക, തളർത്തുക, വീടുപണി ചെയ്യുക
fag in Kannada
ಬಳಲು
fag in Gujarati
ફેગ
fag in Odia
ଫାଗ୍
fag in Nepali
फेग, फेग गर्न
fag in Arabic
لُوطِيّ lūṭiyy, مِثْلِيُّ ٱلْجِنْس miṯliyyu l-jins, زامل, مُخَنَّث muḵannaṯ
fag in Indonesian
homo, maho, hombreng, boti
fag in Persian
کونی kuni, بچه کونی bačče kuni, ابی obi
fag in Thai
เก้ง gêeng, ตุ๊ด dtút, กะเทย gà-təəi
fag in Vietnamese
pê đê, bóng

Examples of fag in a sentence

  • Oh, rent a flat above a shop / And cut your hair and get a job / And smoke some fags and play some pool / Pretend you never went to school1995, Pulp, “Common People”, in Different Class:
  • Bejesus, excuse the language, but the fags'll get me in the end.1996, Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes, Scribner:
  • All of them, like my mother, were heavy smokers, and after warming themselves by the fire, they would sit on the sofa and smoke, lobbing their wet fag ends into the fire.2001, Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, Alfred A. Knopf, section 15:
  • So I started off by asking the shearers if they minded if I took a belly off while they were having a fag.2011, Bill Marsh, “A Female on the Board”, in Great Australian Shearing Stories, unnumbered page:

Synonyms of fag

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of fag

Forms of fag

Noun
pluralfags
Verb
third-person singular presentfags
present participlefagging
past participlefagged
pastfagged

Origin of fag

Probably from fag end (“remnant”), from Middle English fagge (“flap”).

Akin to flag (“droop, tire”). Compare Dutch vaak (“sleepiness”).

Clipping of faggot.

Words formed from fag

Phrases with fag

6 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with fag

39 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about fag

What does fag mean?
Fag means in textile inspections, a rough or coarse defect in the woven fabric.
What is fag in Hindi?
Fag in Hindi is गाँडू (gāṅḍū). See Fag meaning in Hindi.
How do you use fag in a sentence?
Oh, rent a flat above a shop / And cut your hair and get a job / And smoke some fags and play some pool / Pretend you never went to school
What part of speech is fag?
Fag can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce fag?
Fag is pronounced /fæɡ/ (UK).
What is the plural of fag?
The plural of fag is fags.

Words near fag in the dictionary

  1. FAFOed
  2. FAFOing
  3. FAFOs
  4. fafrotskies
  5. FAFSA
  6. fag
  7. fag bash
  8. fag bashed
  9. fag basher
  10. fag bashers
  11. fag bashes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fag (page history and authors); fag (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); fag (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); fag (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fag (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fag (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); fag (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); fag (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: EN-AU ck1 fag.ogg.

Cite this entry: “fag.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fag. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.