lag n.2
1. (UK Und.) a term of transportation or penal servitude.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | ‘Come All You Buffers Gay’ in Musa Pedestris (1896) 53: For if the cull should be down / And catch you a fileing his bag / Then at the Old Bailey you’re found, / And d—n you, he’ll tip you the lag. | |
| London Guide 157: Jack Pettit, whose girl and two companions had the lag for fourteen. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Autobiog. 60: The other two were [...] under sentence of lag for spunk. | |
| Worcester Herald 26 Dec. 4/3: A tag [sic] transportation. | |
| ‘The Bridle Cull’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 140: Then, my blades, when you’re bush’d, and must have the swag, / Walk into tattlers, shiners, and never fear the lag. | |
| Wild Boys of London I 331/1: I’m in for a lag. | |
| Police Sergeant C 21 235: When he has worked out his ‘lag,’ he will go out and put into execution the schemes which he has formed in his mind. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Truth (Brisbane) 10 Apr. 5/1: [H]e proffered the information that he was born in Tasmania [and] arrived [...] in the ancient land of lag, with ham and eggs for breakfast. |
2. a convict who has been transported or sentenced to penal servitude.
| Lex. Balatronicum n.p.: Lag. A man transported. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
| in Seal (1999) 34: Land of lags and kangaroo / Of ’possum and the scarce emu. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 28 Mar. 3/4: The prisoner had been made a cat's paw of, by a designing old female ‘lag’. | |
| Queen of the South 76: What right have you, puppified, sneaking crawlers, to come to this island – to our new country – to the lags’-land? | |
| Daily Tel. 19 Oct. n.p.: The country is so wild and unexplored, that the lag who has traversed it, or could traverse it, might re-enter society as a hero if he would impart his adventures [F&H]. | |
| Sheffield Indep. 23 Dec. 15/2: I’m surly Dick I am [...] an old hand and a lag. | |
| Dundee Courier (Scot.) 7 June 7/7: That chap’s a lag, just come home. | |
| ‘Eureka’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 25: Shall we stand by while mates are seized and dragged like ‘lags’ away? | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Ohinemuri Gaz. (Waikato) 27 Aug. 2/2: You blanky infernal Hobart Town lag! | |
| Tales of the Early Days 10: Give us my five hunderd quick an’ a’ done wi’ it. Look slippy now, Ol’ King-o’-th’-Lags! | |
| Truth (Perth) 24 Dec. 8/8: ‘Sweatin’ ain’t the name to call it; / Convict labor are the word. / Them as thinks lag-days is finished / Do think on a thing absurd’. | |
| ‘Gentlemen All’ in Roderick (1972) 921: Why! they’ll think we’re only a lot of [bloody] lags after all, like they sent out from England! | |
| Exploring Aus. Eng. 13: One enterprising convict, James Hardy Vaux, put together a vocabulary of the criminal slang of the colony – the ‘flash’ language – in 1812. His list includes [...] shake in the sense of ‘steal’, lag for a convict and trap for policeman. | |
| Lingo 32: One of the most interesting of our many little lingoes was that spoken by the convicts transported to Australia — lags as they called themselves. |
3. a convict who has finished his sentence or has been released on parole.
| Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 57: LAG, a returned convict, or ticket-of-leave convict. | |
| , , | | Sl. Dict. |
| Sl. Dict. | |
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 9 Nov. 3/5: During the presentation of a dramatic ‘sketch’ [...] two old lags in the front, row of the gallery became horror stricken. |
4. any convict; thus Lagland, the underworld.
| (con. 1737–9) Rookwood (1857) 179: And thus was I bowled out at last, / And into the jug for a lag was cast. | |
| Recollections of G. Hamlyn (1891) 297: In comes an old chap as I knew for a lag in a minute. | |
| Five Years’ Penal Servitude 25: He [...] had a good report against what he would call a ‘gentleman lag’. | |
| Dundee Courier (Scot.) 14 July 7/3: It’s his father, ‘Jack the Lag,’ what keeps the house. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Aug. 25/1: And picture the day to the station we tramped / With our ‘characters’ safe in the swag – / A long, weary walk, and, by George, you were ‘camped’; / And, don’t you remember, the hands had me stamped, / As one of Ghirt’s runaway ‘lags’? | |
| ‘Bail Up!’ 248: ‘Are the police coming?’ [...] ‘I tinky not. Only that sundowny lun away like ol’ lag.’. | |
| ‘A few notes on N.S.W. professional criminals, by one who knows them’ in Bulletin (Sydney) 4 Oct. 12/4: His speciality when a tottering old grey-beard was ‘pinching’ carpenters’ tools and ‘fencing’ them in the suburbs. He has had many a pound from Guy Boothby for Lagland reminiscences. | |
| Sporting Times 11 Feb. 1/5: Have you heard the story of the penitent lag who essayed to turn over a new leaf at the Salvation Army farm settlement? | |
| The First Stone 20: A common convict, a ‘lag’ / Doing his bitter ‘stretch’. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | ‘The Bloodhounds of Broadway’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 93: They are trained [...] to track down guys such as lags who escape from the county pokey. | |
| Phenomena in Crime 122: Another lag took up the cudgels on Willie’s behalf. | |
| Truth (Brisbane) 26 Dec. 20/3: In Brisbane Police Court last week [...] a pair of the city’s hardened lags went down the chute for a ‘sixer,’ for stealing. | |
 | Dly Herald (London) 11 Feb. 5/4: The first ‘lag’ to have his throat cut, lies in a hospital bed. | |
| Till Human Voices Wake Us 35: A little story entitled a day in the life of a lag. | |
| Bang To Rights 83: A cluster of misserable little houses, which were bilt by some laggs of another age. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | (con. 1940s) Confessions 114: A bomb landed on the Assize Court next door and the blast killed twenty of the lags. | |
| Much Obliged, Jeeves 179: ‘Runkle?’ they’ll say. ‘That old lag?’. | |
| Outside In 110: Lag: convict . | |
| (con. 1950s–60s) in Little Legs 195: lag convict. | |
| Trainspotting 148: He could hear the psycho lags now, cunts, he reflected, like Begbie. | |
| Kill Your Darlings 291: They say he’s in Rio with all the other old lags. | |
| (ref. to 1971) ‘Old Bailey’ Homeless in my Heart 179: Where the lags and toe-rags know / What others have only begun. | |
| Empty Wigs (t/s) 590: She didn’t go into lag-wife mourning while her husband was away. Far from it. |
5. (prison) any length of sentence.
| Wild Tribes of London in Illus. Police News 11 Jan. 12/4: ‘I know as the gal ’elped you to that larst lag’. | |
| Vocab. Criminal Sl. 53: lag [...] an indefinite term of years in prison. | |
| Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 118: Lag. – A prison sentence, usually of a year or more. Seldom if ever used in America to indicate a criminal. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 141: lag [...] a penitentiary sentence. | |
| Big Huey 65: When she finally went away on a trip to England I found my lag a lot easier to do. | |
| Staunch 99: All prison officers will tell you there comes a time when [the prisoner] just decides not to come back [...] it could be the fourth or fifth lag. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 103/2: lag 2 (also lagging) a prison sentence. |
6. (Aus. prison) a three-month sentence [? link to tramp’s lagging under tramp n.].
| Aus. Lang. 141: Here is a brief glossary of jail sentences: lag, three months. snooze. three months [...] rest, twelve months. all the year round. twelve months. | |
| I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 235/1: lag – a jail sentence of three months. |
7. (Aus.) an arrest, a criminal charge.
| (con. 1964-65) Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 133: Then came [...] the coppers shaking her down, wanting her to cut the lag out in trade. |
8. (Polari) a slave.
| Fabulosa 294/1: lag a slave. |
In derivatives
(Aus.) the pentitentiary world.
| Truth (Sydney) 22 July 5/5: The Inborn Brutality which generations of lagdom has naturalised in our system. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 5 May 5/3: The most infamous of all its Courts, even in the medlar days of Lagdom, has never sunk so low. | |
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 25 Sept. 1/3: This is tritely typical of our lovely laws, our heritage of lagdom. |
in N.Z. prison use, pertaining to the inmate
In compounds
a rapist.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 103/2: girl’s lag a rapist. |
a rapist.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 103/2: girl’s lag a rapist. |
in N.Z. prison use, pertaining to the length or severity of a sentence
In compounds
an easy, stress-free sentence.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 103/2: beach lag a very short, carefree prison sentence. |
a very short sentence.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 103/2: bed and breakfast lag a very short, sentence. |
a long sentence, variously seen as 3 years-plus or only 10 years-plus; the consensus is 7 years-plus [‘[T]he length of a big lag is subjective: some consider a big sentence to be anything over two or three years, while other, more long-term inmates, insist that one is only serving a big lag when one “hits the double digits”. Generally, however, most inmates cite seven years’ Looser (2001)].
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 103/2: big lag a long sentence . |
a very short, painless sentence.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/1: cruisy lag a very short, carefree sentence. [...] cushy lag = cruisy lag. |
a sentence of 7 years or more.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/1: decent lag any long sentence, usually anything over seven years, esp. life or Preventive Detention . |
a stress-free sentence.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/2: easy lag (also easy lagging) a carefree sentence. |
a very short sentence or one that seems to pass quickly.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/2: fly-by lag 1 a very easy sentence that literally 'flies by'. 2 a very short sentence. |
a short sentence.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/2: girl’s lag a very short sentence. |
a sentence that seems to go very slowly.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/2: go-slow lag a tedious sentence during which time is dragging and nothing is happening in the prison. |
a short sentence.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/2: gronk’s lag a short sentence. |
see wicked lag
a very long sentence.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/2: hell lag a very long prison sentence, e.g. life. |
a very short sentence.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/2: jet lag a very short sentence. |
an easily accomplished (short) sentence.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/2: kick-back lag an easy, carefree sentence, usually short . |
see wet one under wet adj.1 [wet one].
an unemanding sentence.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/2: lazy lag an easy sentence. |
a long sentence.
| ‘Broken Arse’ in Into the World of Light 166: ‘Seven years, eh? Tha’s a man's lag and I’ll do it on me fuckin’ head’. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/2: man’s lag a long sentence. |
a very short sentence.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/2: pussy lag a very short sentence. |
a sentence of at least 7 years.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/2: real lag a long sentence of at least seven years' duration. |
a short of stress-free sentence.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 105/1: sweet-as lag a sentence that is short or easy. |
1. a long sentence or Preventive Detention.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 105/1: wicked lag 1 any long sentence, e.g. over seven years, life or PD. |
2. a sentence that passes easily.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 105/1: wicked lag 2 an easy sentence that goes extremely well. |
3. (also hard lag) a sentence that presents a variety of problems and is thus hard to accomplish.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 105/1: wicked lag 3 a terrible sentence during which an inmate may do it hard, e.g. be hassled by inmates and officers, have no money, and spend a lot of time in the pound. |
4. a sentence that is considered out of proportion to the crime involved.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 105/1: wicked lag 4 a sentence disproportionately long in relation to the severity of the offence for which it is given. |
in general uses
In compounds
a spurious illness feigned in order to avoid transportation.
| Lex. Balatronicum n.p.: Lag Fever. A term of ridicule applied to men who being under sentence of transportation, pretend illness, to avoid being sent from gaol to the hulks. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
a ship used for the transportation of convicts to Australia; a prison hulk.
| Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 249: lag ship a transport chartered by Government for the conveyance of convicts to New South Wales; also, a hulk, or floating prison, in which, to the disgrace of humanity, many hundreds of these unhappy persons are confined, and suffer every complication of human misery. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
In phrases
(N.Z. prison) to serve a sentence.
| Big Huey 247: Cut out (v) e.g. - five years. Serve five years in prison. | |
| Inside the Gangs 126: Black Power members cut their lags out following creative pursuits. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 51/1: cut out one’s lag v. to serve a sentence. |
see under dead adj.
(N.Z. prison) to serve a sentence.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/1: do a lag to serve a prison sentence. |
(N.Z. prison) to serve a sentence without joining any groups or gangs.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 131/1: do one’s lag one-out to serve one's sentence while remaining 'neutral', i.e. resisting involvement or affiliation with, or recruitment into, any gang. |
(N.Z. prison) to keep oneself to oneself for the duration of one’s sentence.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/1: do one’s own lag to cope independently with prison life, to do one’s own time with the minimum amount of trouble, to remain uninvolved with problems that are not one's own. |
(N.Z. prison) to finish a sentence.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/2: knock one’s lag out to complete one's prison sentence [...] murder own lag to complete one's prison sentence. |
(N.Z. prison) to deal successfully with a sentence.
| ‘The Social Organization of Prisons’ Dissertation [U. Auckland] 327: ‘[D]doing your own lag’ means, minding your own business. It means never violating the privacy, rights, opinions, or individuality of other prisoners. It means never interfering with the property, affairs or interests of a fellow prisoner. | |
| Big Huey 61: Taylor gave me the usual drum on the rules of the block [...] and told me to keep to myself and do my own lagging. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/2: smoke one’s lag to cope with one's prison sentence, to serve one's time without complaint. |