Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use wag in a sentence

37 example sentences · verb, noun

Wag means to swing from side to side, as an animal's tail, or someone's head to express disagreement or disbelief. Example: “She's a real gossip: her tongue is always wagging.”

Examples of wag by meaning

verbTo swing from side to side, as an animal's tail, or someone's head to express disagreement or disbelief.

  • Carrados wagged his head in good-humoured resignation.1914, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados

verbTo play truant from school.

  • They had "wagged it" from school, as they termed it, which..meant truancy in all its forms.1901, William Sylvester Walker, Blood, i. 13

verbTo move continually, especially in gossip; said of the tongue.

  • She's a real gossip: her tongue is always wagging.

verbOf the tail (lower order of the batting lineup): to score more runs than expected.

  • The tail wagged.

nounAn oscillating movement.

  • The wag of my dog's tail expresses happiness.

nounA witty person.

  • By Wednesday it had already won art-world notoriety, and on Saturday it achieved a public visibility that any artist would envy, after a self-promoting wag tore the banana off the wall and gobbled it up.2019 December 8, Jason Farago, “A (Grudging) Defense of the $120,000 Banana”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
  • Many people can't work from home - as one wag observed: "Well, I would, but the wife doesn't like me laying tarmac in the front room!"2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 70

More sentences with wag

  • She wagged her finger in his face, and her eyes narrowed.From the entry narrow
  • He wagged an admonitory finger at the culprit.From the entry admonitory
  • One wag has already named the offspring of this shotgun wedding: romaction.2010 July 6, “How movies became love, camera, action”, in The Sydney Morning Herald. From the entry romaction
  • If you see something going down—tongues wagging, people complaining, plots hatching—stay out of it.2010, Erin Bried, How to Build a Fire And Other Handy Things Your Grandfather Knew, page 92. From the entry save the drama for your mama
  • Rather, Honey, an elderly, overweight Lab mix, waddles and wags my way.1992 June 21, Barbara Holl, Cathy Hainer, Bill Heavey, Walter Nicholls, Christina del Sesto, “Summer Places”, in The Washington Post. From the entry glug
  • The drake beamed at his children and wagged his stumpy tail proudly.1987, Animal fairy tales. From the entry turkeyling
  • This is classic for all non-profit agencies: the tail wags the dog.1987 May 9, Gordon Gottlieb, Richard Burns, Sue Hyde, “Homocrats and Liberationists: Burns and Hyde Consider the Community's…. From the entry the tail wags the dog
  • She rubbed her handglass briskly on her woollen vest against her full wagging bub.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[4]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC. From the entry hand glass
  • Philips wagged an expressive forefinger—the prisoner was not aware of that.1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 153. From the entry deceased
  • He would wuffle and snuggle from just outside, wagging his feathery tail in appreciation of his tiny young friend's attentions.2009, Christopher J. Wortham, Fragments… From Two Lives on Three Continents, Eloquent Books, →ISBN, page 18. From the entry wuffle
  • On the popular hacker hangout Slashdot.com, wags stoke rumors that a “major software company” will soon offer free software—embedded with advertising.2000, Forbes, page 286. From the entry Slashdotter
  • Aksakal!' Rusanov wagged his finger at him.1968, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Cancer Ward, Random House, published 2011, page 28. From the entry aqsaqal
  • Which does the wagging and which is the bewagged?1930, William Arthur Shaw, The theory and principles of central banking. From the entry bewag
  • "For troth I'm a merry dog, I—a wanton wag, a bully boy and jovial, though woeful o' look!"1920, Jeffery Farnol, The Geste of Duke Jocelyn, Fytte 5. From the entry bully boy
  • No one else was wagging and waving in that way: a gestureless mute telegraphy seemed to pass between the other boxes.1913, Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country. From the entry gestureless
  • They turned their shoulders to her most savage slashes, and with wagging tails and mincing steps strove to placate her wrath.1906 May–October, Jack London, White Fang, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906, →OCLC. From the entry placate
  • Before you start wagging a finger and tsk-tsk-ing about millennials, the study also found that Gen X and boomers aren’t far behind them.2022 November 16, Christopher Muther, “Social media is ruining our vacations”, in The Boston Globe. From the entry tsktsk
  • Wouldn't it be nobler by far to fight the good fight with all the weapons available: a firm bass voice, a wagging finger, the Bible?2001 June 10, Walter Kim, “What Do You Tell The Kids?”, in TIME, archived from the original on 07 Mar 2016, retrieved 16 Jul 2014. From the entry noble
  • But these little fellows, who meddle with small shipping nearer home, she callously turns off borrowed ladders, to wag hemp in the wind.1927 August, Leslie Hotson, “Pirates in Parchment”, in The Atlantic. From the entry wag hemp
  • "Then all of you get to your spits; I am sure that is turn about!" "Nay, "said the turnspits, wagging their tails and laughing.1902, Mary Mapes Dodge, St. Nicholas, page 1095. From the entry about
  • On the podium a goalkeeper was moving back and forth, sideways, in front of the full-scribbled goal behind him, uneasily wagging his hands to and fro, wigwagging.2015, Bertil Dunér, chapter 5, in Little Counsellor, Kibworth Beauchamp, Leicestershire: Matador, →ISBN, page 28. From the entry wigwag
  • Since it's inflatable, various artworld wags have been plotting how to shoot a dart into its side and watch it flobber down like a great big burst balloon.2013 May 31, Charlotte Higgins, “Venice Biennale diary: dancing strippers and inflatable targets”, in The Guardian. From the entry flobber
  • There were "small island" jokes ("I hear the roads in antigua are so narrow, the dogs have to wag their tails up & down") and other islandisms.2009, Althea Prince, Being Black, page 16. From the entry islandism
  • The next ambient effect came with the drumlike, thudding heels of a toddler in the audience, who drew close to his mother when the tongue wagging started.2007 November 15, Jennifer Dunning, “Brooklyn Butoh, With Surprise Guest Stars”, in New York Times. From the entry drumlike
  • Whether Vinnifer - or, as some wags are calling it, Jence - can conjure up the same degree of fascination as the ongoing public besotment with Brangelina remains unclear.2005 October 23, “Jennifer's lusty lip-lock tells a rebound tale of post-Brad love”, in Irish Independent. From the entry Vinnifer
  • Wag the Dog emphasizes this political news dimension of the televirtual world and the way it drives and is reflected back through the public's perceptions of reality.2003, Jack Boozer, Career Movies: American Business and the Success Mystique, page 224. From the entry televirtual
  • And, inevitably, in and amongst the messages from the faithful, a few wags have left their contributions: "Elvis, you came, you saw, you conquered, you croaked."1992, Ted Harrison, Elvis People: The Cult of the King, Fount, →ISBN, page 78. From the entry Elvisdom
  • The hours of the day often follow such a beginning like a wagging tail follows through the nosings and affections and fireside dreamings of a happy dog.1982, Dave Hughes, An Angler's Astoria. From the entry nosing
  • A dogman, he said, likes having tails wagged at him, wants to be looked up to, and tends for that reason to be quite a good leader.1968, John Montgomery, The World of Cats, page 12. From the entry cat man
  • The number of Palestinians still being killed by Israelis is now surpassed by the number killed by other Palestinians as "collaborators" (the "intrafada," as one anonymous wag grimly tagged it).1991, David Pollock, “The American Response to the Intifada”, in Robert O[wen] Freedman, editor, The Intifada: Its Impact on Israel, the…. From the entry intrafada

Meaning of wag

  1. verb To swing from side to side, as an animal's tail, or someone's head to express disagreement or disbelief.
  2. verb To play truant from school.
  3. verb To go; to proceed; to move; to progress.

Full definition of wag

Questions about wag in a sentence

How do you use wag in a sentence?
Wag is used as a verb and noun. For example: “She's a real gossip: her tongue is always wagging.”
What is a short sentence with wag?
“The tail wagged.”
What does wag mean?
Wag means to swing from side to side, as an animal's tail, or someone's head to express disagreement or disbelief.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wag (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use wag in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/wag. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.