Green’s Dictionary of Slang

fag-end n.2

1. a fragmentary part of a speech or conversation that one might overhear, just as it tails off.

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[UK]‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 41: I’ll tip you the fag-end of a Common-Garden ditty.
[UK]C.M. Westmacott Eng. Spy I 274: Will Stewart, the poacher, was just humming himself to sleep with the fag end of an old ballad.
[US]T. Haliburton Clockmaker III 225: He was always introducin’ neck-and-crop some fag-end of a Latin line or another.
[UK]G.W.M. Reynolds Mysteries of London II (2nd series) 30: Catching the fag end of a laugh accompanied by the loud cries of ‘Silence!’.
[UK] ‘Case of Circumstantial Evidence’ Town Talk 7 Nov. 413: I’ll just reel off my yarn, and whip the fag-end of it in half a minute.
[UK]J. Greenwood Little Ragamuffin 339: There was nothing much to trouble me in the fag-end of the conversation I had heard.
[Aus]H. Lawson ‘Bogg of Geebung’ in Roderick (1972) 21: The drunkard [...] broke out into something like the fag-end of a song.
[Ire]Joyce Ulysses 594: That worthy, picking up the scent of the fagend of the song or words, growled in wouldbe music, but with great vim, some kind of chanty or other in seconds and thirds.
[US]W.M. Raine Cool Customer 115: I got in at the fag end, just in time to hear the other man say that they had waited long enough for Haskell to act.

2. (also fag) the butt of a cigarette or cigar.

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[UK]‘Cuthbert Bede’ Adventures of Mr Verdant Green (1982) I 39: The Kidderminster carpet [...] had been charred and burnt into holes with the fag-ends of cigars.
[UK]W. Archer Pauper, Thief and Convict 123: A man wearing a billycock hat, and with the fag end of a cigar in his mouth [...].
[UK]Illus. Police News 29 May 3/5: [He] went down to Rochester from London with a large parcel of ‘fags,’ the slang term for cigar ends.
[UK]J. Masefield Everlasting Mercy 73: She took my tumbler from the bar [...] And poured it out upon the floor dust, / Among the fag-ends, spit and sawdust.
[UK]J. Hargrave At Suvla Bay Ch. xiii: The other seven men came crawling out of the bushes to light up their ‘woodbines’ and fag-ends.
[UK]J.B. Booth London Town 302: He has with his own hands removed the paper from the fag ends of the cigarettes he has collected.
[UK]‘George Orwell’ Down and Out in Complete Works I (1986) 202: ‘I owe you some fag-ends’ [...] And he put four, sodden, debauched, loathly cigarette ends into my hand.
A. Lewis Last Inspection 144: The washbasins were still littered with rusty blades and fag-ends.
[UK]S. Jackson An Indiscreet Guide to Soho 42: They trudge along with eyes lowered but usually the only dividend is a few fag-ends.
[Ire]J. Phelan Tramp at Anchor 185: Trains a jackdaw to fetch in fag-ends.
[UK]J.R. Ackerley We Think The World Of You (1971) 22: I ’ad a dog once what ate up all the fag-ends in the street.
[Aus]B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 87: I’ll be after him soon as I’ve washed that fag-end down the plughole.
[UK]B.S. Johnson All Bull 150: The affluent threw their fag-ends to the rabble.
[UK]P. Theroux London Embassy 151: Picking up fag-ends – can’t take him anywhere.
[Aus]R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 12: Bumper: A cigarette butt. However, a bumper harvest is not one of fag ends.
[Ire]P. McCabe Breakfast on Pluto 35: A Dublin fishwife in tattered nylons, holding up a doorway with a fagend on her lip.
[UK]Guardian Weekend 28 Aug. 3: Dropping fag ends out of moving car windows.

In compounds

fag-end man (n.)

a man who collects cigarette ends from the pavement.

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[UK]A.N. Lyons Arthur’s 46: Old Flashlight, the fag-end man, ’as broke ’is collar bone.

In phrases

pick up fag-ends (v.) [sense 2 above, but pun on sense 3]

to listen in to other people’s conversations and attempt to comment upon them or join in; esp. as don’t pick up fag-ends.

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[S. Smith Clives of Burcot 126: The old mischief-maker [...] He’s always picking up fag-ends of gossip].
N. Bawden Little Love, little Learning 213: ‘Who’s alone?’ Joanna asked, coming in [...] ‘Don’t pick up fag ends,’ I said.
[UK]Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 877: [...] from ca. 1910.
Y. West Dolphin Pool 14: ‘Duke?’ queried a girl from the other end of the table. ‘Don’t pick up fag ends, Moira,’ Colette said.
[UK]R. Taylor ‘Not very toothsome: Politics Blog’ Guardian 17 Jan. 🌐 The best moment – clearly scripted – is Ruddle’s deadpan introduction to Pierce’s Westminster Whispers segment. ‘Andrew Pierce does his favourite thing – trawling around quite a rainy Westminster picking up fag ends,’ he says, deadpan.