scrag n.1
1. the neck.
![]() | Discoveries (1774) 5: It is a great Deal of Blunt, and worth venturing your Scraggs for. | |
![]() | New Dict. Cant (1795). | |
![]() | Dict. Sl. and Cant. | |
![]() | Morn. Chron. (London) 15 Apr. 4/2: [used of the entire body] Poor Scrags got such a mawling that he was glad to scarry his ‘scrag’ out of the Court. | |
![]() | ‘Lag’s Lament’ (trans. of an untitled cant poem) in | (1829) IV 266: I adwise you to nose on your pals, and turn the / Snitch on the gang, that’ll be the best vay / To save your scrag.|
![]() | ‘Jerry Abershaw’s Will’ in Fal-Lal Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 17: He said his mother told him he would die in his shoes / [...] / But to prove he told a lie, while his scrag was in the noose, / As a legacy he kick’d them to the mob. | |
![]() | ‘Leary Man’ in Vulgar Tongue (1857) 43: And you must sport a blue billy, / Or a yellow wipe tied loosily / Round your scrag for bloaks to see / That you’re a Leary Man. | |
![]() | Morn. Post 18 Dec. 3/3: Over the evening’s feats and swag, sat a tip-top garotter. / To squeeze a scrag he boast the skill. | |
, , | ![]() | Sl. Dict. |
![]() | ‘’Arry on Law and Order’ in Punch 26 Nov. 249/2: A crusher’s ’ard knuckles a crunching yer scrag. | |
![]() | Musa Pedestris (1896) 177: Until the squeezer nips your scrag, / Booze and the blowens cop the lot. | ‘Villon’s Straight Tip’ in Farmer|
![]() | Bromley Exp. 8 Aug. 4/8: The word ‘scrag’ is borrowed from the butcher’s shop [...] the human ‘scrag end’ is the neck. | |
![]() | Aus. Sl. Dict. 70: Scrag, the neck. |
2. the gallows; the act of hanging.
![]() | Discoveries (1774) 42: I am down for my Scragg; I am to be hang’d. | |
![]() | Whole Art of Thieving [as cit. 1753]. | |
![]() | ‘Cant Lang. of Thieves’ Monthly Mag. 7 Jan. [as cit. 1753]. |
3. a sentence of hanging.
![]() | ‘Jack Muggins’ in Rum Ti Tum! in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 172: Now jack he had at the baily / A narrow escape from a scragg. |
4. a neckerchief.
![]() | Flash Mirror 7: [A] light-coloured neck scrag, gold chin prop, turnip and bunch of onions, pinched-in pin covers and Wellington mud-rakers . | |
![]() | Newcastle Courant 9 Sept. 6/5: They found a somewhat curiously masked ‘scragcloth’ which Cockeyed Tim remembered to have seen Downy Sam wearing. |
In compounds
(UK Und.) the gallows.
![]() | DSUE (1984) 1023/1: ca. 1820–1900. |