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rag
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
rag
I.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
from rags to riches (=from being poor to being rich)
▪ the story of her rise from rags to riches
local rag
rag doll
rag trade
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
glad
▪ Put on the glad rags and go out and party, after that?
▪ She changed out of her glad rags, tugged on old jeans and a sweatshirt and drove out to his house.
▪ Her sister-in-law's glad rags were not very glad.
local
▪ I advertised in the local rag, but to no avail.
▪ But that wretched Sandra would have had a field day too - her picture in the local rag in her best dress.
▪ I can scour the local rags!
oily
▪ The room was shuttered and smelt of oily rags and leather.
▪ He backed off, wiping his hands on the oily rag, frowning.
▪ The garage guy soon joined him, wiping an oily rag with his oily fingers.
▪ She knew all about fire hazards. Oily rags never spent a night in our house.
▪ He had found Bert giving the machine a final wipe over with an oily rag.
▪ He fed it lots of oil and wiped at it all the time with an oily rag so it shone.
▪ With an oily rag, rub the metal part.
▪ Jim reached across and wiped his mate's forehead with an oily rag.
red
▪ When I got back to the villa, I saw a red rag tied to the balcony.
▪ You saved the red rags for the center if you wanted it to look like that.
▪ Behaviour which seems innocuous to one person can be a red rag to another.
▪ Where you and I see blue blazers, the Manchester United captain sees a red rag.
▪ That idea was already red rag enough to the old gentleman.
▪ Such developments were, for Draper, red rag to a bull - hence his recourse to history for the counterattack.
▪ His optimism was a red rag to the protesters.
▪ Naturally this was like a red rag to a bull and I refused to even consider such a course of action.
wet
▪ What a contrast to those wet rags she wore in the movie!
▪ And it took you all your time to get them decent again with a wet rag.
▪ Sometimes amateurs wrap wood in hot wet rags when they want to bend it.
▪ I ran up to the guest room, stripped naked and washed myself with a wet rag.
▪ It hung limply from the tubercular shoulders of its master like a wet rag on a cardboard donkey.
▪ They're not all that good, but they're better than that soaking wet rag you're wearing now.
▪ The unremitting four-mile ascent to the high pass over the ridge reduced me to a walking wet rag.
■ NOUN
doll
▪ This rag doll treatment of our things is great fun for him.
▪ Maddened by the limp rag doll banging against his legs, he veered to the left.
▪ This was how he remembered her, rather than as the cancer-pained rag doll he had nursed until her death.
▪ He grabbed her collar, dragging her clear and across the mud like a life-size rag doll.
▪ The second was propped, ungainly as a rag doll, against the far wall.
▪ She looked like a rag doll.
▪ Can't you see how obscene it is to get him dressed up and wheel him around like a big rag doll?
▪ That was when Kleiber had given up the struggle and collapsed, limp and helpless as a rag doll.
rug
▪ Petey watched him lift the suitcase off the bed and put it on the round rag rug.
trade
▪ As a city it has a great deal to offer - especially to some one like myself who works in the rag trade.
▪ No such inhibitions stunt the growth of the rag trade at the polar opposite point from the basking Sloanes.
▪ Beware of an opportunist rag trade beginning to sell you recycled clothing under the guise of social awareness.
▪ It can be adapted to clothing and Clarks intends to sell its expertise to the rag trade.
▪ My wife is a business woman with two shops and I came out at the height of the rag trade jamborees.
▪ The rag trade adopted the same approach when it came to designing and flogging its clobber.
▪ And yet I didn't want to be consigned to the rag trade.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
be on the ragged edge
glad rags
▪ Her sister-in-law's glad rags were not very glad.
▪ Put on the glad rags and go out and party, after that?
▪ She changed out of her glad rags, tugged on old jeans and a sweatshirt and drove out to his house.
like a red rag to a bull
▪ Naturally this was like a red rag to a bull and I refused to even consider such a course of action.
lose your temper/cool/rag
▪ Bunny wasn't the only one to lose his temper.
▪ He obviously had impregnation on his mind, but by now Lydia had lost her temper and she told him to get stuffed.
▪ I should not have lost my cool and behaved in that manner.
▪ I then walked across to the photographers and lost my temper, lost my head.
▪ Never-absolutely never in my experience-did President Reagan really lose his temper or utter a rude or unkind word.
▪ She couldn't blame him for frightening Anna, for losing his temper with the child.
▪ That was plainly evident in the locker room, where Hostetler teetered on the brink of openly losing his temper.
▪ Why did he always choose to lose his temper over issues in which he was in the wrong?
the rag trade
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Just get a rag and wipe it up.
▪ Maple Leaf Rag
▪ That paper's nothing but a fascist rag.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A wet finger or rag will smooth a caulked joint and leave a neat appearance.
▪ He put the rags be-tween my legs.
▪ I opened the window, stepped out on the ledge, and began to wash windowpanes with a rag.
▪ The smell of oil clung to her as strongly as it did to the rags in the van.
▪ The thin cake was hard and resistant as a frozen rag.
▪ This was how he remembered her, rather than as the cancer-pained rag doll he had nursed until her death.
▪ When I got back to the villa, I saw a red rag tied to the balcony.
II.verb
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
be on the ragged edge
glad rags
▪ Her sister-in-law's glad rags were not very glad.
▪ Put on the glad rags and go out and party, after that?
▪ She changed out of her glad rags, tugged on old jeans and a sweatshirt and drove out to his house.
like a red rag to a bull
▪ Naturally this was like a red rag to a bull and I refused to even consider such a course of action.
the rag trade
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A ragged halo of smoky-blue cloud wraps round the intense silver glow.
▪ Arsenal could easily have trebled their score as they ran Liverpool ragged in the second half.
▪ Brush on the dye, working with the grain, and rag off any excess.
▪ He lay naked on his back with the ragged stump of his leg pointing out the side door.
▪ Her voice sounded ragged from much weeping.
▪ There'd been a ragged reconciliation in the morning.
▪ Theresa tipped the can over; the squirrel, looking ragged, scooted toward liberation.
▪ Uncle Michael on a metal bed, cocooned in a fold of army blanket under mosquito netting, drawing ragged breaths.
Related phrases:
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Rag

Rag \Rag\ (r[a^]g), v. t. [Cf. Icel. r[ae]gja to calumniate, OHG. ruogen to accuse, G. r["u]gen to censure, AS. wr[=e]gan, Goth. wr[=o]hjan to accuse.] To scold or rail at; to rate; to tease; to torment; to banter. [Prov. Eng.]
--Pegge.

Rag

Rag \Rag\, n. [OE. ragge, probably of Scand, origin; cf. Icel. r["o]gg a tuft, shagginess, Sw. ragg rough hair. Cf. Rug, n.]

  1. A piece of cloth torn off; a tattered piece of cloth; a shred; a tatter; a fragment.

    Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tossed, And fluttered into rags.
    --Milton.

    Not having otherwise any rag of legality to cover the shame of their cruelty.
    --Fuller.

  2. pl. Hence, mean or tattered attire; worn-out dress.

    And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
    --Dryden.

  3. A shabby, beggarly fellow; a ragamuffin.

    The other zealous rag is the compositor.
    --B. Jonson.

    Upon the proclamation, they all came in, both tag and rag.
    --Spenser.

  4. (Geol.) A coarse kind of rock, somewhat cellular in texture.

  5. (Metal Working) A ragged edge.

  6. A sail, or any piece of canvas. [Nautical Slang] Our ship was a clipper with every rag set. --Lowell. Rag bolt, an iron pin with barbs on its shank to retain it in place. Rag carpet, a carpet of which the weft consists of narrow strips of cloth sewed together, end to end. Rag dust, fine particles of ground-up rags, used in making papier-mach['e] and wall papers. Rag wheel.

    1. A chain wheel; a sprocket wheel.

    2. A polishing wheel made of disks of cloth clamped together on a mandrel.

      Rag wool, wool obtained by tearing woolen rags into fine bits, shoddy.

Rag

Rag \Rag\, v. t.

  1. To break (ore) into lumps for sorting.

  2. To cut or dress roughly, as a grindstone.

Rag

Rag \Rag\, v. t.

  1. (Music) To play or compose (a piece, melody, etc.) in syncopated time. [Colloq.]

  2. To dance to ragtime music, esp. in some manner considered indecorous. [Colloq. or Slang]

Rag

Rag \Rag\ (r[a^]g), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Ragged (r[a^]gd); p. pr. & vb. n. Ragging (r[a^]g"g[i^]ng).] To become tattered. [Obs.]

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
rag

scrap of cloth, early 14c., probably from Old Norse rögg "shaggy tuft," earlier raggw-, or possibly from Old Danish rag (see rug), or a back-formation from ragged, It also may represent an unrecorded Old English cognate of Old Norse rögg. In any case, from Proto-Germanic *rawwa-, from PIE root *reue- (2) "to smash, knock down, tear up, uproot" (see rough (adj.)).\n

\nAs an insulting term for "newspaper, magazine" it dates from 1734; slang for "tampon, sanitary napkin" is attested from 1930s (on the rag "menstruating" is from 1948). Rags "personal clothing" is from 1855 (singular), American English. Rags-to-riches "rise from poverty to wealth" is attested by 1896. Rag-picker is from 1860; rag-shop from 1829.

rag

"scold," 1739, of unknown origin; perhaps related to Danish dialectal rag "grudge." Related: Ragged; ragging. Compare bullyrag, ballarag "intimidate" (1807).

Wiktionary
rag

Etymology 1 n. 1 (context in the plural English) Tattered clothes. 2 A piece of old cloth; a tattered piece of cloth; a shred, a tatter. 3 A shabby, beggarly fellow; a ragamuffin. 4 A ragged edge in metalworking. 5 (context nautical slang English) A sail, or any piece of canvas. 6 (context slang pejorative English) A newspaper, magazine. 7 (rfc-sense) (context poker slang English) A card that appears to help no one. 8 (rfc-sense) (context poker slang English) A low card. vb. (context intransitive English) To become tattered. Etymology 2

n. A coarse kind of rock, somewhat cellular in texture; ragstone. vb. 1 To break (ore) into lumps for sorting. 2 To cut or dress roughly, as a grindstone. Etymology 3

n. 1 (context dated English) A prank or practical joke. 2 (context UK Ireland English) A society run by university students for the purpose of charitable fundraising. vb. 1 To scold or rail at; to rate; to tease; to torment; to banter. 2 (context British slang English) To drive a car or another vehicle in a hard, fast or unsympathetic manner. 3 To tease or torment, especially at a university; to bully, to haze. Etymology 4

n. 1 (context obsolete US English) An informal dance party featuring music played by African-American string bands. (19th c.) 2 A ragtime song, dance or piece of music. (from 19th c.) vb. 1 (context transitive informal English) To play or compose (a piece, melody, etc.) in syncopated time. 2 (context intransitive informal English) To dance to ragtime music.

Related phrases:
WordNet
rag

  1. n. a small piece of cloth or paper [syn: shred, tag, tag end, tatter]

  2. a week at British universities during which side-shows and processions of floats are organized to raise money for charities [syn: rag week]

  3. music with a syncopated melody (usually for the piano) [syn: ragtime]

  4. newspaper with half-size pages [syn: tabloid, sheet]

  5. a boisterous practical joke (especially by college students)

  6. [also: ragging, ragged]

rag

  1. v. treat cruelly; "The children tormented the stuttering teacher" [syn: torment, bedevil, crucify, dun, frustrate]

  2. cause annoyance in; disturb, especially by minor irritations; "Mosquitoes buzzing in my ear really bothers me"; "It irritates me that she never closes the door after she leaves" [syn: annoy, get to, bother, get at, irritate, rile, nark, nettle, gravel, vex, chafe, devil]

  3. play in ragtime; "rag that old tune"

  4. harass with persistent criticism or carping; "The children teased the new teacher"; "Don't ride me so hard over my failure"; "His fellow workers razzed him when he wore a jacket and tie" [syn: tease, razz, cod, tantalize, tantalise, bait, taunt, twit, rally, ride]

  5. censure severely or angrily; "The mother scolded the child for entering a stranger's car"; "The deputy ragged the Prime Minister"; "The customer dressed down the waiter for bringing cold soup" [syn: call on the carpet, rebuke, trounce, reproof, lecture, reprimand, jaw, dress down, call down, scold, chide, berate, bawl out, remonstrate, chew out, chew up, have words, lambaste, lambast]

  6. break into lumps before sorting; "rag ore"

  7. [also: ragging, ragged]

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Rag (student society)

University Rag societies are student-run charitable fundraising organisations that are widespread in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Most universities in the UK and Ireland, as well as some in South Africa and the Netherlands have a Rag. In some universities Rags are known as Charities Campaigns, Charity Appeals, Charity Committees, or Karnivals, but they all share many attributes.

In the UK, the National Student Fundraising Association (NaSFA), set up in December 2011, exists as a support and resource sharing organisation run by those managing rags for others managing RAGs.

RAG

RAG or RAGS may refer to:

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "rag".

She proceeded to explain about the ragged bundle Acorn had carried, and described the rock that fell out of it after his death.

Many of the people afoot had worn and ragged coats, breeches out at the knee, dresses with tattered hems, and threadbare cloaks or none at all.

The landscaping was from another age: a couple of four-story cocoapalms, indifferently pruned bird of paradise grown ragged, agapanthus, andcalla lilies surrounding a flat, brown lawn.

By right, as an old friend who had found the airman in the forest, Seryonka was walking solemnly in front of the stretcher, laboriously pulling his feet, encased in the huge felt boots left him by his father, out of the snow and sternly scolding the other white-toothed, grimy-faced, fantastically ragged boys.

I would be every bit as effective in my ragged old coat, or stark naked for that matter, but he does insist-was Thero came in just then and Nysander gave Alec a wink that put him very much in mind of Micum Cavish.

Clasping the acrid rag to his face, Alec moved among the dozen or so bodies laid out for inspection.

His family went hungry, his clothes turned to rags, while he stared into the glass alembic and waited for the nigredo to give way to the peacock colors of transformation, through the white albedo to the glorious red of the final stage.

A moment later, while yet the shock wave of the first blast raced outward, and the fuselage of the aircraft followed suit, its aluminite body burning like a petrol-soaked rag in the incredible heat.

His amanuensis found it impossible to keep up with him, and therefore profited by a hint from one of us, and instead of writing, merely moved his pen rapidly over the paper, scrawling all sorts of ragged lines and figures to resemble writing!

She was at it all week for more than eight hours a day, until her back and neck ached, and ragged curls of unfurling ampersands swam across her vision.

He stirred his limbs in the thick, gold liquid, found that he had less mobility than an embryo, that his fingers had turned to fins, that his muscles had atrophied to weak rags, and that this pain was the true medium and placental fluid of the universe.

Rhapsody cleared her throat, ragged from the salt, and quietly sang one of the ancient aubades, the love songs to the sky that Liringlas had been marking time with for as long as she knew.

The tide was high, and the ragged rocks of the Banc des Violets in the south and the Corbiore in the west were all but hidden.

In the center, a skinny, gray-bearded man dressed only in ragged knee breeches was juggling four belaying pins.

And to the intent you may beleeve me I will shew you an example : wee were come nothing nigh to Thebes, where is the fountain of our art and science, but we learned where a rich Chuffe called Chriseros did dwell, who for fear of offices in the publique wel dissembled his estate, and lived sole and solitary in a small coat, howbeit replenished with aboundance of treasure, and went daily in ragged and torn apparel.