hag

1. (international standards)ISO 639-3language code forHanga.

• IPA^(key):/hæɡ/

• Audio(General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes:-æɡ

FromMiddle Englishhagge,hegge(“demon, old woman”), shortening ofOld Englishhægtesse,hægtes(“harpy, witch”), fromProto-West Germanic*hagatussjā.^[1] Cognate withSaterland FrisianHäkse(“witch”),Dutchheks,GermanHexe(“witch”).Doublet ofhex.

hag (pluralhags)

1. Awitch,sorceress, orenchantress; a femalewizard.
   • 1565, Arthur Golding (tr.),The Fyrst Fower Bookes of P. Ouidius Nasos worke intitled Metamorphosis‎^[1], London: William Seres, The Fovrthe Booke:

     And that oldehag that with a staffe his staggering lymbes dooth stay

   • 1851 November 14,Herman Melville, chapter 3, inMoby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.:Harper & Brothers; London:Richard Bentley,→OCLC,page11:

     Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New Englandhags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched.

2. (derogatory) Anuglyoldwoman.
   • 1887, Harriet W. Daly,Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page67:

     The elder women were literally "oldhags" - lean and shrivelled, and excessively ugly.

3. (derogatory) Anevil woman.
   • 2017,Eric Pearson,Craig Kyle,Christopher Yost, directed byTaika Waititi,Thor: Ragnarok, spoken by Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson):

     I don't plan to stop drinking. But... I don't wanna forget. I can't turn away anymore. So, if I'm gonna die, well, it might as well be driving my sword through the heart of that murderoushag.

4. (US,slang) A woman over the age of 30 years.

   – What is thathag trend that is going on?

   – The trend,hagmaxxing, is when younger men pursue relationships withhags.

5. Afury; a she-monster.
   • 1646, Richard Crashaw, “Sospetto D' Herode”, inSteps to the Temple, stanza 37:

     Fourth of the cursed knot ofhags is she / Or rather all the other three in one; / Hell's shop of slaughter she does oversee, / And still assist the execution

6. Ahagfish; one of various eel-like fish of the familyMyxinidae, allied to thelamprey, with asuctorial mouth, labial appendages, and a single pair of gill openings.
7. Ahagdon orshearwater; one of various sea birds of the genusPuffinus.
8. (obsolete) An appearance of light and fire on a horse's mane or a person's hair.
   • 1656, Thomas White,Peripateticall Institutions‎^[2], page149:

     Flamma lambentes (or those we callHaggs) are made of Sweat or some other Vapour issuing out of the Head; a not-unusuall sight amongst us when we ride by night in the Summer time: They are extinguisht, like flames, by shaking the Horse Mains

9. Thefruit of thehagberry,Prunus padus.
10. (uncountable,slang)Sleep paralysis.

• (witch or sorceress): SeeThesaurus:magician
• (ugly old woman): SeeThesaurus:ugly woman
• (eel-like marine fish):borer,hagfish,sleepmarken,slime eel,sucker,myxinid
• (sea bird):hagdon,haglet,shearwater
• (fruit of the hagberry):bird cherry,hackberry

FromMiddle Englishhag (denoting a gap in a cliff), fromOld Norsehǫgg(“cut, gap, breach”), derivative ofhǫggva(“to hack, hew”). CompareEnglishhew, Old Swedishhug(“blow, stroke”).

hag (pluralhags)

1. (Northern England) A smallwood, or part of a wood orcopse, which is marked off or enclosed forfelling, or which has been felled.[from 15th c.]
   • 1845, Edward Fairfax (tr.),Godfrey of Bulloigne; or, The Recovery of Jerusalem: Done into English Heroical Verse‎^[3], page168:

     This said, he led me over hoults andhags; / Through thorns and bushes scant my legs I drew

2. Amarshyhollow, especially an area ofpeat lying lower than surroundingmoorland, formed by erosion of a gully or cutting and often having steep edges.[from 16th c.]
   • 1662, Sir William Dugdale,The History of Imbanking and Drayning of Divers Fenns and Marshes‎^[4], page292:

     And they likewise ordained[…] that all the warp should be thrown into the Common wayes, to fill uphaggs and lakes, where need was, upon a great penalty, where it should ly neer the Common rode.

   • 1836, Walter Scott,Waverley Novels, page375:

     […] upon wet brae-sides, peat-haggs, and flow-mosses,[…]

   • 1845,The New Statistical Account of Scotland: Ayr, Bute, page107:

     The uplands are generally mossy, resting on clay of a yellow colour, covered by moss of various depths, which often break into what are calledhags, or flow-moss.

   • 1868, James Salmon,Gowodean, page49:

     […] I had made sure to find him in thehag o' Coars-Neuk Moor,[…]

   • 1882, Joseph Senior,Smithy Rhymes and Stithy Chimes, Or, the Short and Simple Annals of the Poor, page46:

     The strongest nag that crosses th'hagg / Wi wots ta Fullod mill.

   • 1898, Charles Spence,From the Braes of the Carse: Poems and Songs by the Late Charles Spence, page189:

     […] the murky flag / Flaps on Turftennant's rushyhag."

   • 2017,Benjamin Myers,The Gallows Pole, Bloomsbury, published2019, page101:

     The shallow slow-running groughs fed thehag with a trickle of coppery water.

   • 2023 October 12, Mike Billett,Peat and Whisky: The Unbreakable Bond, Saraband,→ISBN:

     The winter snow has collected amongst the eroded peathags and is being actively reshaped into deep dunes and linear ripples by the strong winds whipping across the summit ridge. In the winter light, large sandblasted granite tors, sugar-coated with ice, stand out […]

• moss-hag

• grough

hag (third-person singular simple presenthags,present participlehagging,simple past and past participlehagged)

1. To cut or erode (as) ahag (a hollow into moorland).
   • 1874,Notes and Queries, page253:

     hag[…] is that part in mosses which is naturally or artificially cut, hollowed,hagged, or hacked; naturally by water runlets forming hollows, and artificially by, among other means, the cutting and removal of peat.

   • 1956,Scotland's Magazine, volume52, page39:

     Covenanters too met often on our moss-hagged moors.

   • 1990, Angélique Day, Patrick McWilliams,Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland: Co. Antrim VIII-IX, page 5:

     […] on one occasion, where the bog had been cut away, a stump was discovered which bore evident marks of having beenhagged [hacked].

   • 2024, Peter Hadden, Iain Chisholm,A Very British Journey:

     Crowberry is particularly abundant onhagged peat and in cotton grass mires; it prefers drier ground,[…]

FromMiddle Englishhaggen, fromProto-Germanic*hag(g)ōnan (compare obsoleteDutchhagen(“to torment, agonize”),Norwegianhaga(“to tire, weaken”)).^[2]

hag (third-person singular simple presenthags,present participlehagging,simple past and past participlehagged)

1. (transitive) Toharass; toweary withvexation.
   • 1692, Roger L'Estrange (tr.),Fables of Aesop and Other Eminent Mythologists: with Morals and Reflexions‎^[5], page149:

     How are Superstitious MenHagg'd Out of their Wits and Senses, with the Fancy of Omens, Forebodings, Old Wives Tales, and Visions

•  Hag in theEncyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

• hag do(etymologically unrelated)

• HGA,GAH,gha,agh,gah

hag

1. and

• (before consonants or/j/)ha

hag

1. and

• (before consonants)ha

hag

1. imperative ofhage

FromMiddle Englishhaggen(“to hack, chop, cut”), fromOld Norsehǫggva(“to hew”). CompareEnglishhag, above. Noun attested from the 14th century in Older Scots, with the verb from c. 1400.

• hagg
• haag,haug

hag (pluralhags)

1. anotch; apit orbreak
2. astroke of anaxe or similar instrument
3. thefelling oftimber; the quantity ofwood felled
4. aquagmire from whichpeat orturf is cut

hag (third-person singular simple presenthags,present participlehaggin,simple pasthagg'd,past participlehaggit)

1. tochop (wood); tohack; todig out (coal etc.)
2. (figurative) tomake a hash of (something)
   • 1829, C.N.[John Wilson], “Noctes Ambrosianæ”, inBlackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine‎^[6], page789:

     […]and the rawzorhaggit like a saw—Trumbull o’ Selkirk makes good rawzors, but the weans are unco fond of playing wi’ mine, puir things—Od keep us!

     when the razor ishacked like a saw-tooth—Trumbull from Selkirk makes good razors, but the children are uncommonly fond of playing with mine, the poor things—then God help us!

3. tocut down trees and preparetimber

Unknown. Perhaps from Etymology 1 above, “to hack”, thus “castrate”. Comparehogg(“a young sheep”). Attested from the 19th century.

hag (pluralhags)

1. anox
2. acattleman, one who raisescattle or oxen

   Synonym:hagman

FromIcelandichagga(“to budge; to put out of place”). Attested from the 20th century.

hag (third-person singular simple presenthags,present participlehaggin,simple pasthagg'd,past participlehaggit)

1. tohinder; toimpede

• “hag,v¹, n¹.”, inThe Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh:Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present,→OCLC, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors,The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh:Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976,→OCLC.
• “hag,n.”, inThe Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh:Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present,→OCLC, reproduced fromWilliam A[lexander] Craigie,A[dam] J[ack] Aitken[et al.], editors,A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue: […], Oxford, Oxfordshire:Oxford University Press, 1931–2002,→OCLC.
• “hag,v.”, inThe Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh:Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present,→OCLC, reproduced fromWilliam A[lexander] Craigie,A[dam] J[ack] Aitken[et al.], editors,A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue: […], Oxford, Oxfordshire:Oxford University Press, 1931–2002,→OCLC.
• “haggen,v.”, inMED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.:University of Michigan,2007.
• “hag,n².”, inThe Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh:Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present,→OCLC, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors,The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh:Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976,→OCLC.
• “hag,v².”, inThe Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh:Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present,→OCLC, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors,The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh:Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976,→OCLC.