wag
UK/wæɡ/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
British/waɡ/
wag verb: to swing from side to side, as an animal's tail, or someone's head to express disagreement or disbelief.
Verb
wag (third-person singular simple present wags, present participle wagging, simple past and past participle wagged)
- To swing from side to side, as an animal's tail, or someone's head to express disagreement or disbelief.
- No discerner durst wag his tongue in censure.1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio)...
- Every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished, and wag his head.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Bible Jeremiah:18–16
- To play truant from school.
- "My misfortunes all began in wagging, Sir; but what could I do, exceptin' wag?" "Excepting what?" said Mr. Carker. "Wag, Sir. Wagging from school." "Do you mean pretending to go there, and not going?" said Mr. Carker. "Yes, Sir, that's wagging, Sir."1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, “chapter xxii”, in Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC
- They had "wagged it" from school, as they termed it, which..meant truancy in all its forms.1901, William Sylvester Walker, Blood, i. 13
- To go; to proceed; to move; to progress.
- "Thus we may see," quoth he, "how the world wags."c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
- To move continually, especially in gossip; said of the tongue.
- She's a real gossip: her tongue is always wagging.
- To leave; to depart.
- I will provoke him to 't, or let him wag.1623, William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor
- Of the tail (lower order of the batting lineup): to score more runs than expected.
- The tail wagged.
Noun (1)
wag (plural wags)
- An oscillating movement.
- The wag of my dog's tail expresses happiness.
- A witty person.
- Was not my Lord
The veryer Wag o'th' two?c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount... - But being a bit of a wag, and relishing a good joke amazingly, he concluded to have a little fun, and at the same time learn his friend a lesson concerning his negligent custom.1855 July 1, anonymous author, The Judge's Big Shirt, Yankee-notions, →ISSN
- Was not my Lord
Noun (2) capitalized: WAG
WAG (plural WAGs)
- A wife or girlfriend of a sports star or other celebrity, originally and especially of an association football player.
- The World Cup WAGs are a good example of this. The younger girls, nicknamed the ‘hen-night crowd’ and led by Colleen McLoughlin, dance on tables and drink until the early hours while No. 1 WAG Victoria Beckham remains aloof, dining sedately with Ashley Cole’s fiancee, Cheryl Tweedy.2006 July 2, Lucy Rock, “Bitchiness: It's not just a girl thing”, in The Observer, page 20
- In Wimbledon, the tennis WAGs and - just as excitingly - HABs (Husbands and Boyfriends) have been appearing courtside, enthusiastically cheering on their beloved other halves with a degree of style.2006 July 4, Emma Cowing, The Scotsman
Noun (3) capitalized: WAG
WAG (plural WAGs)
- Acronym of wild-ass guess; a rough estimate.
- Near-synonyms: SWAG, wild guess, uneducated guess, stab in the dark, shot in the dark; see also Thesaurus:supposition
- Synonyms:
- SWAG, wild guess, uneducated guess, stab in the dark, shot in the dark, assumption, conjecture, foreguess, given, guess
- Acronym of women's artistic gymnastics.
Examples of wag in a sentence
- Carrados wagged his head in good-humoured resignation.1914, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados:
- […] she wagged English and Science just to go in his car […]2005, Arctic Monkeys, “Bigger Boys and Stolen Sweethearts”, in I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor:
- 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:
Synonyms of wag
- SWAG
- wild guess
- uneducated guess
- stab in the dark
- shot in the dark
- assumption
- conjecture
- foreguess
- given
- guess
13 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of wag
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | wags |
| present participle | wagging |
| past participle | wagged |
| past | wagged |
| Noun | |
| plural | wags |
| plural | WAGs |
Origin of wag
From Middle English waggen, probably from Old English wagian (“to wag, wave, shake”) with reinforcement from Old Norse vaga (“to wag, waddle”); both from Proto-Germanic *wagōną (“to wag”). Related to English way. The verb may be regarded as an iterative or emphatic form of waw (verb), which is often nearly synonymous; it was used, e.g., of a loose tooth. Parallel formations from the same root are the Old Norse vagga feminine, cradle (Swedish vagga, Danish vugge), Swedish vagga (“to rock a cradle”), vugge (“to rock a cradle”), Dutch wagen (“to move”), early modern German waggen (dialectal German wacken) to waver, totter. Compare waggle, verb
Back-formation from WAGs (“wives and girlfriends”), mid-2000s.
Acronyms.
Words formed from wag
Phrases with wag
Words that rhyme with wag
Questions about wag
- 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.
- How do you use wag in a sentence?
- Carrados wagged his head in good-humoured resignation.
- What part of speech is wag?
- Wag can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce wag?
- Wag is pronounced /wæɡ/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of wag?
- The past tense of wag is wagged.
Words near wag in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wag (page history and authors); WAG (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: en-au-wag.ogg.
Cite this entry: “wag.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wag. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.