• IPA: /dæɡ/

From Middle English dagge, of uncertain (probably Germanic) origin, cognate with (Middle) Dutch dag, dagge, dagh.

dag (plural dags)

1. A hanging end or shred, in particular a long pointed strip of cloth at the edge of a piece of clothing, or one of a row of decorative strips of cloth that may ornament a tent, booth or fairground.
2. A dangling lock of sheep’s wool matted with dung.
   • 1597-98 1597–8, Joseph_Hall_(bishop) Joseph Hall Satires, Book 5, number 1:

     To see the dunged folds of dag-tayled sheepe.

   • 1859-1865, Hensleigh Wedgwood, A Dictionary of English Etymology

     Daglocks, clotted locks hanging in dags or jags at a sheep's tail.

   • 1998, Wool: Volume 8, Issue 10, as published by the Massey Wool Association:

     He was one of the first significant private buyers of wool in New Zealand, playing a major part in bringing respectability to what at first was a very diverse group. He pioneered the pelletising of dag waste.

   • 1999, G. C. Waghorn, N. G. Gregory, S. E. Todd, and R. Wesselink, Dags in sheep; a look at faeces and reasons for dag formation, published in the Proceedings of the New Zealand Grassland Association 61, on pages 43–49:

     The development of dags first requires some faeces to adhere to wool, but this is only the initial step in accumulation.

   • 2006, in the compilation of the Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture, volume 46, issues 1-5, published by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (Australia), on page 7:

     [Researchers] note that free pellets are characteristic of healthy sheep and that if sheep consistently produced free pellets, wool staining and dag formation would not occur.

• daglock, taglock
• daggings
• dung tag

dag (dags, present participle dagging; simple past and past participle dagged)

1. To shear the hindquarters of a sheep in order to remove dags or prevent their formation.
2. (obsolete, or dialectal) To sully; to make dirty; to bemire.

From Old French dague (from Old Provençal dague, of uncertain origin, perhaps from Vulgar Latin *daca, from the Roman province Dacia (roughly modern Romania); the ending is possibly the faintly pejorative -ard suffix, as in poignard ("dagger")); cognate with dagger.

dag (plural dags)

1. A skewer.
2. A spit, a sharpened rod used for roasting food over a fire.
3. (obsolete) A dagger; a poniard.
4. (obsolete) A kind of large pistol.
   • 1563 March 30 (Gregorian calendar), John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perillous Dayes, […], London: […] Iohn Day, […], →OCLC ↗:

     The Spaniards discharged their dags, and hurt some.

   • 1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons:

     A sort of pistol, called a dag, was used about the same time as hand guns and harquebuts.

5. The unbranched antler of a young deer.

dag (dags, present participle dagging; simple past and past participle dagged)

1. (transitive) To skewer food, for roasting over a fire
2. (transitive) To cut or slash the edge of a garment into dags

Variation of dang.

1. (US, informal) Expressing shock, awe or surprise; used as a general intensifier.

Perhaps a back-formation from daggy, or, a specialised sense of British dialect dag, a daring feat amongst boys.

dag (plural dags)

1. (Australia slang, derogatory slang) One who dresses unfashionably or without apparent care about appearance; someone who is not cool; a dweeb or nerd.
   • 2004 July 25, Debbie Kruger, Melbourne Weekly Magazine, All the World's a Stage ↗,

     Now, wide-eyed and unfashionably excited ("I’m such a dag!" she remarks several times), she has the leading role of Viola in the Bell Shakespeare Company’s production of Twelfth Night, opening on August 10 at the Victorian Arts Centre Playhouse.

2. (Australia slang, New Zealand, obsolete) An odd or eccentric person; someone who is a bit strange but amusingly so.

• dirtball, scruffbag, slob; see also Thesaurus:untidy person

• daggy (adj)

• Russian: неряха

Initialism for directed acyclic graph.

dag (plural dags)

1. (graph theory) A directed acyclic graph; an ordered pair (V, E) such that E is a subset of some partial ordering relation on V.

Of gmq origin; compare Swedish dagg. Doublet of dew.

dag (plural dags)

1. A misty shower; dew.

dag (dags, present participle dagging; simple past and past participle dagged)

1. (UK, dialect) To be misty; to drizzle.

dag (plural dags)

1. (chiefly, Ireland) Pronunciation spelling of dog
   • 2000, Guy Ritchie, Snatch, quoted in, Miguel Á. Bernal-Merino, Translation and Localisation in Video Games: Making Entertainment Software Global, Routledge ISBN 9781317617846, page 68:

     Mickey: Dags! D' ya like dags?

dag

1. Initialism of deputy attorney general
2. (computer science, mathematics) Acronym of directed acyclic graph
3. (US, legal) Initialism of defense acquisition guide
4. (biochemistry) Initialism of diacylglycerol