• IPA: /fæɡ/

Probably from fag end, from Middle English fagge.

fag (plural fags)

1. (US, technical) In textile inspections, a rough or coarse defect in the woven fabric.
2. (UK, Ireland, colloquial, now, offensive in US and Canada) A cigarette.
   • 2001, Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, Alfred A. Knopf, section 15:

     All of them, like my mother, were heavy smokers, and after warming themselves by the fire, they would sit on the sofa and smoke, lobbing their wet fag ends into the fire.

3. (UK, Irish, obsolete, colloquial) The worst part or end of a thing.

• (cigarette) ciggy (Britain, Ireland), smoke, (Cockney rhyming slang) oily rag

• French: clope
• German: Zigarette
• Italian: cicca
• Russian: папиро́са

Akin to flag ("droop, tire"). Compare Dutch vaak.

fag (plural fags)

1. (British, Irish, colloquial, now, rare, now, offensive in US and Canada) A chore: an arduous and tiresome task.
2. (British, Irish, education, historical, colloquial, now, offensive in US and Canada) A younger student acting as a servant for senior students.
   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC ↗:

     “He was my fag at Eton,” Warrington said. “I ought to have licked him a little more.”

fag (fags, present participle fagging; simple past and past participle fagged)

1. (transitive, colloquial, used mainly in passive form, now, rare, now, offensive in US and Canada) To make exhausted, tired out.
2. (intransitive, colloquial, now, rare, now, offensive in US and Canada) To droop; to tire.
   • a. 1829, G. Mackenzie, Lives, quoted in 1829, "Fag", entry in The London Encyclopaedia: Or, Universal Dictionary, Volume 9, page 12 ↗,

     Creighton with-held his force 'till the Italian began to fag, and then brought him to the ground.

3. (intransitive, British, Irish, education, historical, colloquial, now, offensive in US and Canada) (of a younger student) To act as a servant for senior students in many British boarding schools.
4. (transitive, British, Irish, education, historical, colloquial, now, offensive in US and Canada) To have (a younger student) act as a servant in this way.
   • 1887, Francis Bacon, Richard Whately, Essays, page 63:

     It is everywhere observed that a liberated slave is apt to make a merciless master, and that boys who have been cruelly fagged at school are cruel faggers.

5. (intransitive, British, Irish, now, rare, now, offensive in US and Canada) To work hard, especially on menial chores.
   • 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC ↗:

     I walked about the streets where the best shops for ladies were, I haunted the Bazaar like an unquiet spirit, I fagged through the Park again and again, long after I was quite knocked up.

fag (plural fags)

1. (chiefly, US, Canada, vulgar, usually offensive, sometimes affectionate) A homosexual man, especially (usually derogatory) an effeminate or unusual one.
   • 1921 John Lind, The Female Impersonators ([https://web.archive.org/web/20130131071453/http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/historical_dictionary_of_american_slang/ Historical Documentation of American Slang] v. 1, A-G, edited by Jonathan E. Lighter (New York: Random House, 1994) page 716.

     Androgynes known as “fairies,” “fags,” or “brownies.”

2. (US, vulgar, derogatory, offensive) An annoying person.

   Why did you do that, you fag?

• (male homosexual) See Thesaurus:homosexual person
• (annoying person) See Thesaurus:jerk

• French: pédé, tapette, pédale, fif
• German: Schwuchtel, Tunte, Schwuler, Homo
• Italian: finocchio, frocio, ricchione, rottinculo
• Portuguese: paneleiro (Portugal); bicha (Brazil), viado
• Russian: голубо́й
• Spanish: puto, maricón, joto, marica, mariquita, parguela (Andalusian), bujarra (offensive)