Word.ws English Dictionary

grab hag

grab hag noun: one who takes excessively or takes all that is available, without regard for the needs or considerations of others.

Noun

grab hag (plural grab hags)

  1. (China, derogatory, often, rare, slang) One who takes excessively or takes all that is available, without regard for the needs or considerations of others.
    • There’s a certain type of auntie in China, OK? We call them grab hags. […] There’s a specific demographic of these grab hags, we call them, which are, like, the most infuriating people you’ll ever meet. […] They’re basically like these vile creatures that will take anything they can. If they see an...2022 November 8, China Fact Chasers, “The Evil Grab Hags of China!”, in YouTube
    • If you have free samples, a grab hag will take all of them, leaving none for anyone else.
      Grab hags are the reason why many parts of China don’t have free toilet paper in bathrooms.2025 January 4, Ossiana Tepfenhart, “The Great Uncivilization Of America Is Here”, in Medium, archived from the original on 06 Jan 2025

Forms of grab hag

pluralgrab hags
alternative formgrab-hag

Origin of grab hag

From grab + hag. Originally applied to older women who engaged in the practice, but now can be applied to individuals of any age or gender.

Words formed from grab hag

  • grab-hag

Questions about grab hag

What does grab hag mean?
Grab hag means one who takes excessively or takes all that is available, without regard for the needs or considerations of others.
What part of speech is grab hag?
Grab hag is a noun.
What is the plural of grab hag?
The plural of grab hag is grab hags.

Words near grab hag in the dictionary

  1. grab boxes
  2. grab bucket
  3. grab buckets
  4. grab by the lapels
  5. grab game
  6. grab hag
  7. grab hags
  8. grab handle
  9. grab handles
  10. grab hoe
  11. grab hoes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: grab hag (page history and authors). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-grab hag.wav.

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