Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(also butt-end) the last part or remnant of anything.

1600		Weakest goeth to the Wall line 420: I am the fag end of a Tayler; in plaine English a Botcher.
1607		A Knight’s Conjuring Ch. III E2: Hee wold signify to their fathers how course the threed of life fell out to be nowe towards the Fagge ende.
1614		R. Taylor Hog Hath Lost His Pearl I i: Yes there’s the fagg end of a leg of mutton.
1622		Massinger Virgin-Martyr II iii: The a----, as it were, or fag-end of the world.
1637		J. Taylor Drinke and Welcome 9: I shall abruptly conclude [...] with the fagge-end of an old man’s old will.
1645		P. Fisher ‘A March’ in Carpenter Verse in English from Tudor & Stuart Eng. (2003) 259: The Rabble that / Came i’ th’ Fagg-end of all.
a.1661		‘The Re-resurrection of the Rump’ Rump Poems and Songs (1662) II 4: A Rump’s a Fag-end, like the baulk of a Furrow, / And is to the whole like the Jail to the Burrough.
1675		Head Art of Wheedling 206: This felllow is the fag-end or Pug of a Conjurer.
1678		Scourge for Poor Robin 6: You shall infallibly finde him and his Tribe about the Fag-end of the day at the Rendezvouze.
1682		Buckingham Chances Epilogue: Perhaps you Gentlemen, expect to day The Author of this Fag-end of a Play.
1698		N. Ward ‘A Trip to Jamaica’ Writings (1704) 165: If I compare the Best of their Streets in Port-Royal to the Fag end of Kent-Street, where the Broom-men Live, I do them more than Justice.
1708		True Characters of A Deceitful Petty-Fogger et al. 3: Writing Bills, Bonds, and Acquittances from Presidents at the Fag-end of an Almanack.
1713		J. Gay Wife of Bath I i: I hope, the Rogue hath not begun at the fag end of the Ceremony.
1730		J. Gay Wife of Bath (rev. edn) I iv: I came just in the nick! [...] unless they have begun at the fag-end of the ceremony.
1759–67		Sterne Tristram Shandy (1949) 562: The account of this is worth more, than to be wove into the fag end of the eighth volume of such a work as this.
1771		Smollett Humphrey Clinker (1925) II 25: To effect a conjunction with an old maid, who, in all probability, had fortune enough to keep him easy and comfortable in the fag-end of his days.
1780		H. Cowley Belle’s Stratagem IV i: Adieu! then I’m come in at the fag end!
1796		Sporting Mag. Aug. VIII 283/2: Then humm’d to myself the fag end of a song.
1803		‘C. Caustic’ Petition Against Tractorising Trumpery 66: Perkinism [...] had its birth and education Quite at the fag-end of Creation!
1818		W. Perry London Guide 45: The fag-end of a song is a good signal.
1827		H. Wilson Memoirs V 16: To proceed, in form, with this fag-end of my history, or fagging end, if you will, for I am really fagged, as they call it, and tired of it.
1832		Egan Bk of Sports 41: Our game-laws [...] the very fag-end of the old feudal system.
1836		D. Crockett in Meine Crockett Almanacks (1955) 52: I jumped up and snapped my fingers in his face, and telled him that I didn’t care the fag end of a johnny cake for him.
1849		G.G. Foster N.Y. in Slices 33: Our wife buys a new frock [...] which she is assured is the real French chintz, warranted fast colors, and which, after the first washing, looks like the fag-end of a consumptive rainbow.
1850		‘Ned Buntline’ G’hals of N.Y. 9: That large an hapless class who can boast of inheriting and possessing the fag-ends only of this world’s goods.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 117: The fag end of the season, when the gay idlers of London had gone to the sea-side.
1861		J. Hollingshead Ragged London 110: Where the links of new buildings have not yet joined each other you can see fag-ends of courts.
1870		L. Oliphant Piccadilly 127: Only the fag-end of the diplomatic corps had responded.
1874		M. Clarke Term of His Natural Life (1897) 12: It was the fag end of the two hours’ exercise graciously permitted [...] by His Majesty King George the Fourth.
1899		J.W. Davis Gawktown Revival Club 3: The fag end of some remnant of a ‘higher civilization’.
1899		R. Whiteing No. 5 John Street 33: A ridiculous fag-end of the shirt, itself a shred, sticks tailwise out behind.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Mar. 24/1: Dr. Neild broke into the fag-end of the musical programme with a few sweet remarks concerning the buxom identity and her determination to see what Dear Old England is made of.
1903		G.D. Chase ‘Cape Cod Dialect’ in DN II:v 301: tag end, n. Fag end.
1907		Gem 16 Mar. 1: It was the fag-end of a drowsy, oppressive summer’s afternoon.
1909		R. Service ‘The Wood-Cutter’ Ballads of a Cheechako 97: I’m holding it down on God’s scrap-pile, up on the fag-end of earth.
1915		E. Pound letter 12 Sept. in Read Letters to James Joyce (1968) 56: Again you will get the fag ends of my mind. But I have spent the morning doing 2000 words on you and your play.
1934		Wodehouse Right Ho, Jeeves 91: There was fag-end of sunset still functioning.
1939		‘Flann O’Brien’ At Swim-Two-Birds 116: At the butt-end of a year’s wandering in the company of each other.
1944		P. Larkin letter 8 Oct. in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 93: Christ, the blasted wireless is loud. The fag end of the bloody news.
1959		A. Sillitoe ‘The Fishing-Boat Picture’ Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1960) 74: I was at home, smoking my pipe in the backyard at the fag-end of an autumn day.
1966		P. White Solid Mandala (1976) 156: With the fag-end of her intelligence Dulcie could have sensed this.
1986		S. King It (1987) 276: All that was left now was the butt end of autumn.
1999		Guardian Rev. 25 June 8: One of the many riotous parties which marked the glowing fag-end of the 60s.