shakerag
shakerag noun: a pauper; a bum.
Noun
shakerag (plural shakerags)
- A pauper; a bum.
- […] that it is our Lords intent to trie our pacience the better, when he casteth vs after that maner into contempt, no only of those that are in authoritie & estimation, but also those that are the veriest shakerags , so as we wold in our minde thinke our selues to be assaulted rather of brute...1574, Jean Calvin, Sermons on Job, page 510
- Well take it as they list, shakerag came in, Making no doubt but they would like of him : And twere but for his person a pretty lad Well quallified, hauing a singing trade.1599, Micro-cynicon: sixe snarling satyres
Proper noun capitalized: Shakerag
Shakerag
- A common nickname given to a poor rural town.
- We passed a little place to-day called Shakerag, which reminded us very much of a little town we passed through in Kentucky called Dogwalk.1882, Benjamin F. McGee, William Ray Jewell, History of the 72d Indiana Volunteer Infantry of the Mounted Lightning Brigade
- Almost every cross-roads, that had a cabin and a man who could read and write enough to become Postmaster for the monthly pony mail, was at once a New London, Pekin, Liverpool or Shakerag.1883, William Henry Perrin, History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois
- A nickname sometimes given to the slum area of town in the Southern United States.
- Shakerag's nondescript shacks were alive with music day and night, a sharp contrast to the dreary, monotonous routines of work-a-day life.1993, Howard A. DeWitt, Elvis: The Sun Years : The Story of Elvis Presley in the Fifties, page 53
- In the fall of 1946, when George was serving as the Chamber of Commerce president, Keirsey hired a new cook, an angular, twenty-six-year-old, Viceroy-smoking woman named Essie Howard, who lived in the black slum Shakerag with her husband, Seaphus, a janitor at the North Mississippi Community...2012, Robert Blade, Tupelo Man: The Life and Times of George McLean, page 150
Forms of shakerag
| plural | shakerags |
|---|
Origin of shakerag
From shake + rag.
Probably from shakerag, although some authors propose other etymologies such as the use of rags to cover the nose and mouth during the Spanish flu.
Questions about shakerag
- What does shakerag mean?
- Shakerag means a pauper; a bum.
- What part of speech is shakerag?
- Shakerag can be a noun or a proper noun.
- What is the plural of shakerag?
- The plural of shakerag is shakerags.
Words near shakerag in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: shakerag (page history and authors); Shakerag (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.
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Cite this entry: “shakerag.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shakerag. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.