rag

noun

1. (especially, in-plural)Tattered clothes (clothing).

   “—What a pretty dress! —What, this old rag?”

   “It's semiformal. I can't show up dressed in rags!”

   “rags to riches”

   “And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.”

2. A piece of old cloth, especially one used for cleaning, patching, etc.; a tattered piece of cloth; a shred or tatter.

   “Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, toss'd, / And flutter'd into rags; then reliques, beads,”

   “[…]even by the law of their own might and malice, not having otherwise any rag of legality to cover the shame of their cruelty.”

3. (derogatory)A shabby, beggarly person; synonym of ragamuffin.

   “For upon the like Proclamation there, they all came in, both tag and rag”

   “The other zealous rag is the compositor, / Who in an angle where the ants inhabit, / (The emblems of his labors) will sit curl'd”

   “Nor will it be achieved by marching in the streets in leather, drag, chains, fish net over-flying-tits or any other get up. It will not be accomplished by hung-over bar rags, hustlers, shallow queens, or angry dykes.”

4. A ragged edge in metalworking.
5. (slang)A sail, or any piece of canvas.

   “Our ship was a clipper, with every rag set, stunsails, sky-scrapers, and all.”

   “"'Oh yes, that's all very well, but we haven't done with it yet,' said the lad, 'we shall have it worse directly,' and he ordered them to furl every rag but the mizen."”

6. (plural, singular, slang)Sanitary napkins, pads, or other materials used to absorb menstrual discharge.

   “"It's heaviest on the first day, which might be why it hurts so much. After that, it slows down and eventually stops, but you'll need the rags for about a week."”

7. (derogatory, slang)A newspaper or magazine, especially one whose journalism is considered to be of poor quality.

   “"You must behave yourself, dear. Mr. Malone is a Pressman. He will have it all in his rag to-morrow, and sell an extra dozen among our neighbors."”

8. A poor, low-ranking kicker.

   “I have ace-four on my hand. In other words, I have ace-rag.”

9. (slang)A curtain of various kinds.
10. (dated)A person suffering from exhaustion or lack of energy.

    “"It took it out of me, though. I'm a rag this morning." "They work you too hard, dear."”

11. (obsolete, slang)A banknote.

    “What was he at, do you think? Counting bank-notes; he had bundles of them. […] Well, Guv'nor, he stood up by-and-by, and taking the bundles of rags, the big uns in one hand, tother ones in tother, he toddled out of the room; […] So I tucked my violin under my arm, and sallied out after the old budgy ragman, determined to ease him of his load at the very first lonesome corner I could track him to.”

12. An uneven vertical margin (of a block of type).

    “We always leave rag on article typeset for the web.”

13. (countable, uncountable)A coarse kind of rock, somewhat cellular in texture; ragstone.

    “the three walls around the garden, each one of thirty-three feet, were built out of three layers of stone — pebble stone, flint and rag stone.”

14. (dated)A prank or practical joke.

    “The rascal winked and grinned. 'There are always and means,' said he. 'But don't blame your foreman. He thought it was just a rag. I swapped clothes with his assistant, and in I came.'”

    “Well, it’s only a rag, isn’t it?”

15. (Ireland, UK)A society run by university students for the purpose of charitable fundraising.
16. (US, obsolete)An informal dance party featuring music played by African-American string bands.
17. A ragtime song, dance or piece of music.
18. (abbreviation, alt-of, initialism, uncountable)Initialism of retrieval-augmented generation: a method of augmenting performance of LLMs (large language models) by serving them a curated selection of data input, via a combination of relevant data libraries and on-the-fly but relevant search results.

    “Moreover, the effectiveness of RAG might decrease if the knowledge base becomes “polluted” by LLM-generated content.”

verb

1. (transitive)To decorate (a wall, etc.) by applying paint with a rag.
2. (intransitive)To become tattered.
3. (euphemistic, intransitive, slang, sometimes, vulgar)To menstruate.
4. To break (ore) into lumps for sorting.
5. To cut or dress roughly, as a grindstone.

   “Near-synonym: rough”

6. To scold or tell off; to torment; to banter.

   ““Yesterday it was Mademoiselle Daubreuil, today it is Mademoiselle—Cinderella! Decidedly you have the heart of a Turk, Hastings! You should establish a harem!” “It’s all very well to rag me. […]””

7. (British, slang)To drive a car or another vehicle in a hard, fast or unsympathetic manner.
8. To tease or torment, especially at a university; to bully, to haze.
9. (informal, transitive)To play or compose (a piece, melody, etc.) in syncopated time.

   “Now let's rag it. We'll keep the notes more or less the same but make the rhythm more fun.”

10. (informal, intransitive)To dance to ragtime music.
11. (obsolete)To add syncopation (to a tune) and thereby make it appropriate for a ragtime song.

name

1. (UK, obsolete, slang)Synonym of Rag and Famish (“the Army and Navy Club in London, England”).