Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to hang (usu. on the gallows).

1718		C. Hitchin Regulator 22: Good Mr. Wild stood their Friend, else they must have been Scragg’d.
1780		R. Tomlinson Sl. Pastoral 11: What kiddy’s so rum as to get himself scragged.
1785		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: You’ll be scragged, ottomised, and grin in a glass case, you’ll be hanged, anatomised, and your skeleton kept in a glass case.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1820		Jack Randall’s Diary 26: A fellow, who was fit at most, To scrag, or nap the winding post.
1833		‘A Parody On The Light Guitar’ in Lummy Chaunter 56: I’ll tell thee how fat Sal sobb’d / When her flash man was scragg’d.
1833		‘Swished for a Week’ in Rake’s Budget in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 72: Her neck she in her garters tied / [...] / And scragg’d herself by Friday night.
1840		Flash Mirror 9: Vot, ain’t you scragged yet?
1841		‘A Week’s Matrimony’ Dublin Comic Songster 292: Her neck she in her garters tied, / Then to a nail she fixed them tight, / And scragged herself by Saturday night.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 4 Mar. 3/4: Sam has desired me to say, that these ere Villiam ought to be Scragged, and [...] he’ll shell out ’till he effects that object.
1852		G.C. Mundy Our Antipodes I 107: The eminent and opulent firm of Lag, Scragg, Hempson & Co.
1859		‘Hundred Stretches Hence’ in Matsell Vocabulum 124: Some rubbed to whit had napped a winder, / And some were scragged and took a blinder.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1878		Besant & Rice By Celia’s Arbour III 183: I do hope, guv’nor, as you won’t be scragged.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 3: He tells them about the poor chap he’s been to see as is to be scragged next month.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 19 Feb. 1/7: This paper [...] remembers the judicial scragging of Rev. Dr Dodd for forging Lord Shaftesbury’s name.
1897		C. Whibley ‘Gentleman Harry’ A Book of Scoundrels 218: His early companions were scragged at Tyburn.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 25 Aug. 13/3: O, a busy, busy man will the hangman be, / And great will be the wear of his gallows tree, / And long will be the drop when he scrags the Three / In a Spring morn’s early daylight.
1906		E. Pugh Spoilers 289: You’d be pinched an’ scragged as safe as ’ouses. At any rate, you’d be put in stir for the rest o’ your natural.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 4 Aug. 11/4: If Hawley Crippen [...] comes to the gallows he will have the distinction of being the first man to be hanged by wireless telegraphy, just as Tawell was the first to be scragged by the ordinary wire.
1936		L. Pound ‘Amer. Euphemisms for Dying’ in AS XI:3 200: Scrag.
1952		(con. 1948) G. Mandel Flee the Angry Strangers 221: Man wants to scrag himself, I’m the last one to stand in his way.
1960		F. Villon Le Jargon et Jobelin (trans. Bonner) 177: For fear of getting scragged in jail, / stay clear of thick-walled cells.

2. (also skrag) to do harm, to beat up, to kill.

1830		Lytton Paul Clifford II 316: If so be as how you scrags I, will that put your vorship in the vay of finding he?
1833		Proc. Old Bailey 14 Feb. 222/2: Cook said, if I ever split, he would muzzle me (both the prisoners were present) - Pearce said if I did not go on with it, he would scrag me,.
1840		R. Barham ‘The Babes in the Wood’ in Ingoldsby Legends (1842) 190: So out with your whinger at once, / And scrag Jane, while I spiflicate Johnny!
1842		S. Lover Handy Andy 296: My pistol missed fire, and my horse slipped his shoulder, and now I’ll be scragged.
1856		Huddersfield Chron. (Yorks.) 28 June 3/5: Scrag Jane, while I spiflicate Johnny.
1870		in G.D. Atkin House Scraps (1887) 51: Remembering Nelson’s maxim, / ‘Scrag every man in blue’.
1883		T.B. Reed Willoughby Captains (1887) 185: ‘Scrag him! scrag the schoolboy!’ yelled the roughs.
1897		Kipling ‘Slaves of the Lamp — Part I’ in Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) 59: Don’t drop oil all over my ‘Fors’ or I’ll scrag you!
1902		‘Dads Wayback’ in Sun. Times (Sydney ) 28 Sept. 5/5: ‘They tells hlin how many wives Henry ther Eighth had, an’ ther way he scragged ’em’.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 18 Sept. 1/1: As soon as the gentlemen got in holts the ladies scragged each other with vim.
1907		C.E. Mulford Bar-20 v: Johnny, delirious and covered with blood, was carried into the bunk house. Buck [...] spoke sharply and without the usual drawl: ‘Skragged from behind, blast them!’.
1908		Magnet 13 June 5: I suppose you knew we should get over the gate if you didn’t and scrag you!
1910		H.G. Wells Hist. of Mr Polly (1946) 150: Simply ran into his pails – as anyone might [...] and out he comes and scrags me.
1913		Sport (Adelaide) 5 July 9/1: Come to light, Alf, or the mob will scrag you .
1924		C.J. Dennis ‘The Knight’s Return’ Rose of Spadgers 98: It’s ’im I scragged in Spadgers – number one – / The late suspected gun. / It’s Danny Dunn.
1931		D. Runyon ‘Romance in the Roaring Forties’ Runyon on Broadway (1954) 38: He is scared half to death thinking I am going to scrag him.
1934		Sydney Morn. Herald2 Jan. 3/2: Western Australians would ‘scrag’ him. I am, etc., Sandgroper.
1945		H.B. Darrach Jr. ‘Sticktown Nocturne’ in Baltimore Sun (MD) 12 Aug. A-1/2: Fireman over on this tug, comes in, gets himself scragged [...] sapped with a bottle.
1948		C. Day Lewis Otterbury Incident 128: Go in and scrag him.
1953		W. Brown Run, Chico, Run (1959) 33: I’m going to skrag the no-good bastard. God help me, I’ll skrag him.
1960		N. Hilliard Maori Girl 28: Her father went around saying [...] he would scrag her.
1978		S. King Stand (1990) 273: ‘We scragged him!’ the PFC cried hysterically. ‘Holy God, we done scragged Sergeant Perters!’.
1982		R. Dahl Revolting Rhymes n.p.: She yelled, ‘I’m going to scrag that child! / I’ll cook her flaming goose! I’ll skin ’er!’.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 94: Scrag To kill someone.
2000		G.V. Higgins At End of Day (2001) 50: He didn’t want to scrag anyone but a competitor.

3. in attrib. use of sense 2.

2012

L. Redhead ‘Grassed’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] Sharni had busted her and it turned into a full on scrag fight.

4. to drag, to haul.

1914

Truth (Melbourne) 24 Jan. 11/4: He discovered a man asleep, and then scragged him downstairs.

5. to throttle, to choke, to garrotte.

1905

E.W. Hornung A Thief in the Night (1992) 329: ‘But they strangled her in her bed with her own pillow-case!’ [...] ‘They didn’t break in for that. They never thought of scragging her.’.

6. to commit suicide.

1938

D. Runyon ‘A Very Honorable Guy’ Runyon on Broadway (1954) 419: I am figuring on scragging myself [...] Yes, I think I will scrag myself.

7. (US drugs/gang, also skrag) to steal.

1953		W. Brown Monkey On My Back (1954) 13: When you got a monkey on your back, you’re alone. The only way you can get the money is to skrag it.
1953		W. Brown Run, Chico, Run (1959) 8: They’d questioned him for almost an hour about some ice they claimed he’d scragged from a dame in a downtown night club.

8. (Aus./US) to have sexual intercourse.

1993		B. Moore Lex. of Cadet Lang. 319: scrag [...] to engage in sexual intercourse.
1997–2000		Da Bomb 🌐 25: Scragin: Having intercourse.