Hag

//hæɡ// noun, verb, slang

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A witch, sorceress, or enchantress; a female wizard.

    "And that olde hag that with a staffe his staggering lymbes dooth stay"

  2. 2
    A small wood, or part of a wood or copse, which is marked off or enclosed for felling, or which has been felled. Northern-England

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

  3. 3
    eellike cyclostome having a tongue with horny teeth in a round mouth surrounded by eight tentacles; feeds on dead or trapped fishes by boring into their bodies wordnet
  4. 4
    An ugly old woman. derogatory

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

  5. 5
    A marshy hollow, especially an area of peat lying lower than surrounding moorland, formed by erosion of a gully or cutting and often having steep edges.

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

Show 9 more definitions
  1. 6
    an ugly evil-looking old woman wordnet
  2. 7
    An evil woman. derogatory

    "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 murderous hag."

  3. 8
    A woman, particularly one over the age of 30 years. US, derogatory, slang, sometimes

    "– What is that hag trend that is going on?"

  4. 9
    A fury; a she-monster.

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

  5. 10
    A hagfish; one of various eel-like fish of the family Myxinidae, allied to the lamprey, with a suctorial mouth, labial appendages, and a single pair of gill openings.
  6. 11
    A hagdon or shearwater; one of various sea birds of the genus Puffinus.
  7. 12
    An appearance of light and fire on a horse's mane or a person's hair. obsolete

    "Flamma lambentes (or those we call Haggs) 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"

  8. 13
    The fruit of the hagberry, Prunus padus.
  9. 14
    Sleep paralysis. slang, uncountable
Verb
  1. 1
    To cut or erode (as) a hag (a hollow into moorland).

    "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."

  2. 2
    To harass; to weary with vexation. transitive

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

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English hagge, hegge (“demon, old woman”), shortening of Old English hægtesse, hægtes (“harpy, witch”), from Proto-West Germanic *hagatussjā. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Häkse (“witch”), Dutch heks, German Hexe (“witch”). Doublet of hex.

Etymology 2

From Middle English hag (denoting a gap in a cliff), from Old Norse hǫgg (“cut, gap, breach”), derivative of hǫggva (“to hack, hew”). Compare English hew, Old Swedish hug (“blow, stroke”).

Etymology 3

From Middle English hag (denoting a gap in a cliff), from Old Norse hǫgg (“cut, gap, breach”), derivative of hǫggva (“to hack, hew”). Compare English hew, Old Swedish hug (“blow, stroke”).

Etymology 4

From Middle English haggen, from Proto-Germanic *hag(g)ōnan (compare obsolete Dutch hagen (“to torment, agonize”), Norwegian haga (“to tire, weaken”)).

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