Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to sentence to transportation for more than seven years.

1753		J. Poulter Discoveries (1774) 42: I am to be legg’d; I am to be transported.
c.1770		‘The Lads of Virginia’ in Holloway & Black II (1979) 149: Those hard-hearted judges so cruel has been, / To lag us poor lads to Virginia.
1786		Whole Art of Thieving [as cit. 1753].
1799		‘Cant Lang. of Thieves’ Monthly Mag. 7 Jan. [as cit. 1753].
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1815		T. Moore ‘Epistle from Tom Cribb to Big Ben’ in Morn. Chron. 31 Aug. 3: Ay — just a the time to show spunk, if you’d got any — / Kick’d him, and jaw’d him, and lag’d him to Botany!
1828		‘The Song of the Young Prig’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 172: If I’m not lagged to Virgin-nee, / I may a Tyburn show be.
1836		‘The Crossman’s Wife’ Cockchafer 9: Vat shall I do, vat shall I do, / When thou art lagg’d from me.
1841		‘Nix My Jolly Gals Poke Away’ in Gentleman’s Spicey Songster 16: For priging a ticker, they did me lag [...] But I cut my lucky one fine day, / And turn’d my a--e on Botny Bay.
1842		Flash (NY) 3 July n.p.: He was ‘lagged’ to Botany Bay for life.
1847		[A. Harris] (con. 1820s) Settlers & Convicts 47: Having ‘lagged myself for fear the king should do it for me’.
1858		‘A. Pendragon’ Queen of the South 97: What as you lagged for?
1866		Wild Boys of London I 250/2: ‘How’s the trial going on?’ [...] ‘Lane’s; the one for burglary, I mean.’ ‘I haven’t heard; suppose he’ll be lagged tho’!’.
1890		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Sept. 24/1: The last man they sent me as a clerk was a swell mobsman, lagged for twisting a sparkler.
1902		H. Baumann ‘Sl. Ditty’ Londinismen (2nd edn) v: Rum coves that relieve us / Of chinkers and pieces, / Is gin’rally lagged, / Or, wuss luck, gits scragged.
1936		(con. 1830s–60s) ‘Miles Franklin’ All That Swagger 133: He was lagged for struggling for freedom.

2. (also lag off) to arrest, to apprehend.

1822		Times 11 Sept. 3/3: If the swells do not come forward and settle the business we shall lag him.
1830		Egan Finish to the Adventures of Tom and Jerry (1889) 244: You may take your ‘davy’ they can’t lag you for being found here, without you are wanted.
1836		‘The Bastard’s Christening’ in Comic Songster and Gentleman’s Private Cabinet 12: There vos bow-legged Bet, and randy Sal, / Leery Suke, who had never been scragg’d; / Flare-up Peg, and fat-arse Meg, / Who better had been twice lagg’d.
1840		London Mag. Mar. 88/2: ‘It’s the fighting Hirishman, by — l’ roared out a voice inside. ‘Hout with you, and “lag” him’.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 25 Mar. 2/1: His sister, Mother Samuels, is well known to have more girls lag’d out of her crib than any baud in Shoemaker’s Row.
1847		Bell’s Life in Sydney 13 Mar. 3/1: He lagged him off to the watch-house.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 252: They tell him adventures of how they were nearly ‘lagged by the constables’.
1866		Sth Aus. Wkly (Adelaide, SA) 29 Dec. 6/5: [from ‘Liverpool paper’] [I]f by accident a pupil is ‘legged’ — a slang term for being taken by the police — he must take care to have performed his work in such a manner as to avoid being come at by legal evidence.
1867		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 5 Oct. n.p.: He avers that the first time he catches the Frenchwoman ‘cruizing’ the streets, he will ‘lag’ her.
1885		M. Davitt Leaves from a Prison Diary I 23: They declare this [i.e. betrayal] to be the way in which they are ‘lagged’ (arrested), when not taken in the performance of a job.
1891		N. Gould Double Event 263: You’ll never lag me alive, you cur.
1899		C. Rook Hooligan Nights 11: You get lagged for loiterin’ wiv intent to commit a felony.
1900		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 10 Nov. 11/4: He was ‘lagged’ on a charge of mayhem and held under $1,000 bail.
1902		‘Dads Wayback’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 3 Aug. 1/5: ‘[W]hen I wos drunk, I give meself away, an' er cop lagged me’.
1905		Marvel III:58 19: They reckons a feller as leads ’em, takes a slice of the swag, and then keeps hisself outen it all an’ don’t run no risk o’ being lagged, arn’t quite square.
1912		E. Pugh City Of The World 273: It wants a lot o’ practice, either way, and ’fore you’re perfect you’re mostly always lagged as a rule.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 574: He was lagged the night before last and fined ten bob for a drunk and disorderly and refusing to go with the constable.
1933		L. Stone Larrikin 307: Lag – to put lag-irons on.
1990		Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 3. To arrest.
1996		P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] Me case was about to come up. I had been lagged for another jumpover I did.
2004		P. Howard PS, I Scored the Bridesmaids 101: I’m glad just to get the fock out of there without being lagged off.

3. (UK Und.) to cause trouble for; to lead to an arrest.

1865

Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 115/2: Gentlemen! Boys! do you hear me? or do you want to ‘lag’ the drum at once! Stop this fighting, or we’ll have all the ‘cops’ in the town down on us.

4. to imprison.

1838		Dickens Oliver Twist (1966) 190: But the father gets lagged; and then the Juvenile Delinquent Society comes, and takes the boy away.
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 6 Dec. 3/2: She sent him home with the consolitary observation that, ‘should Glover be “lagged’ to the Derwent she'd follow him’.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 30/2: Sure enough, there was the mark of her talon on the back of the ‘wire’s duke’ — evidence enough to have ‘lagged a parish’.
1908		A.N. Lyons Arthur’s 154: Not before they lagged me.
1910		H.G. Wells Hist. of Mr Polly (1946) 217: Jim’s lagged again, Missus.
1910		Truth (Perth) 24 Dec. 8/8: ‘When you sez you won’t be sendin’ / Of a gell to gaol, you know; / As you wont be laggin’ of her, / To a ‘refuge’ she must go’.
1938		F.D. Sharpe Sharpe of the Flying Squad 331: lagged : Send to penal servitude.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 121/1: Lag, v. (Southern, Central and mid-Western U.S.) To jail or imprison.

5. to cause someone to be arrested / imprisoned.

1838		Paul Pry 30 Sept. 180/3: This hell–fire devil has been heard to say that he means to lag old Hague, in order that he may raise quarterly subsidies from the gambling houses for himself.
1872		Proc. Old Bailey 6 May 80: We have found the b—cow that lagged him, and we have done it for her.

6. (Aus.) to inform on.

1887		W.E. Henley ‘Villon’s Straight Tip’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 176: Suppose you screeve, or go cheap-jack? / [...] / Suppose you duff? or nose and lag? / Or get the straight, and land your pot?
1903		J. Furphy Such is Life 243: Don’t kindle a fire, unless you want to get lagged.
1911		L. Stone Jonah 48: I niver lagged ’im; s’elp me Gawd, I niver put nobody away to the cops.
1972		Adamson & Hanford Zimmer’s Essay (1974) 63: He didn’t lag on -57 and -16 [...] He could see the shiv very clearly.
1977		in K. Gilbert Living Black 302: Have you seen how they hate the cops yet run like yelpin’ mongrels dogs to lag each other in?
1984		B. Ellem Doing Time 103: [O]ther prisoners came to me and asked [...] whether I lagged this guy with the knife. I said no and that the Chief had found the knife behind the cell door.
1990		Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Lag. 1. To inform.

7. (Aus. / US Und.) to imprison on trumped up charges and faked evidence.

1914		Jackson & Hellyer Vocab. Criminal Sl. 53: lag [...] the equivalent of ‘railroading’ a criminal to prison.
1916		N.Z. Truth 2 Aug. 8/1: Will the spirit of the good old days when a vicious mistyress was allowed to lag her maid out to Botany Bay on a trumped up charge never pass?

8. (N.Z. prison) to serve time in jail (in a single setence or over time in multiple sentences).

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 105/1: lag v. 1 to serve a prison sentence 2 to serve several prison sentences over a considerable period of time.