fag-end

Noun

fag-end (plural fag-ends)

1. (literally) The unsmoked end of a cigarette or cigar.
2. (India, broadly, figuratively) The last remnant.
   • And though the annals of the period do not shew us that there was less ale drawn, or less canary called for; men got dry with the heat of polemical discussion, and drunk with a text, not the fag end of a ballad, in their mouths; and people made a sort of morality of straight hair, long faces, and...1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 190
   • He wanted to drop the gentleman and go down into the ranks, beginning on the lowest rung of the ladder, where no one would know of his disgrace or mind it if he did know; his father and mother on the other hand would wish him to clutch on to the fag-end of gentility at a starvation salary and with...1873–1884 (date written), Samuel Butler, chapter LXVII, in R[ichard] A[lexander] Streatfeild, editor, The Way of All Flesh, London: Grant Richards, published 1903, →OCLC, page 300

   Synonyms:

   tag end, tail end

3. (broadly, figuratively) The frayed end of a length of cloth or rope.