Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the neck.

1753		J. Poulter Discoveries (1774) 5: It is a great Deal of Blunt, and worth venturing your Scraggs for.
a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795).
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1824		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.
1829		‘Lag’s Lament’ (trans. of an untitled cant poem) in Vidocq (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.
1833		‘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.
1857		‘Leary Man’ in ‘Ducange Anglicus’ 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.
1862		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.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1887		‘’Arry on Law and Order’ in Punch 26 Nov. 249/2: A crusher’s ’ard knuckles a crunching yer scrag.
1887		W.E. Henley ‘Villon’s Straight Tip’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 177: Until the squeezer nips your scrag, / Booze and the blowens cop the lot.
1894		Bromley Exp. 8 Aug. 4/8: The word ‘scrag’ is borrowed from the butcher’s shop [...] the human ‘scrag end’ is the neck.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 70: Scrag, the neck.

2. the gallows; the act of hanging.

1753		J. Poulter Discoveries (1774) 42: I am down for my Scragg; I am to be hang’d.
1786		Whole Art of Thieving [as cit. 1753].
1799		‘Cant Lang. of Thieves’ Monthly Mag. 7 Jan. [as cit. 1753].

3. a sentence of hanging.

1837

‘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.

1840		Flash Mirror 7: [A] light-coloured neck scrag, gold chin prop, turnip and bunch of onions, pinched-in pin covers and Wellington mud-rakers .
1881		Newcastle Courant 9 Sept. 6/5: They found a somewhat curiously masked ‘scragcloth’ which Cockeyed Tim remembered to have seen Downy Sam wearing.