lagging n.
1. (UK Und.) a sentence of transportation; thus lagging matter, any crime punishable by transportation.
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 249: lagging matter any species of crime for which a person is liable on conviction to be transported. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Oliver Twist (1966) 389: ‘What do you mean by lagging and a lifer?’ [...] They represented that combination of words, ‘Transportation for life’. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 20 Mar. 3/1: What’s the odds, it’s all square now—’twas all in our lagging. | |
| Experiences of a Convict (1965) 155: Transportation for an offence not disgraceful would eventually prove an actual blessing. Indeed I am not certain that every individual in the two English Houses of Parliament would be the worse for a seven year’s ‘lagging’. |
2. (Aus./UK Und.) any prison sentence.
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 1 Aug. 2/4: Daly had confessed his crimes, adding that he expected a lagging. | |
| Age (Melbourne) 13 Dec. 5/2: [H]e may have committed manslaughter in Van Diemen’s Land, and have done a ‘lagging’ for that. | |
| Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 68/2: No getting away! — a sure ‘lagging’ stared me in the face, and apparently my career as a ‘gun’ ended! | |
| Five Years’ Penal Servitude 48: The prisoner [...] told me he had done a ‘lagging’ before, and knew what it all was. | |
| Leaves from a Prison Diary I 143: An educated man who had ‘done a lagging’ in C— convict prison. | |
| Manchester Eve. News 4 Aug. 5/4: Now, what are you going to do for the future? This is your second lagging. | |
| Twenty-Five Years of Detective Life II 186: For fetching a lagging / There’s no place like Woking. | |
| West Gippsland Gaz. (Warragul, Vic.) 28 Feb. 6/3: On my left hand was an Irishman doing his fourth lagging for burglary. | |
| Squeaker (1950) 23: It was a rotten lagging. | |
| Cockney Cavalcade 49: He hadn’t been caught [...] since he’d come out of doing that ‘lagging’ for a big job in the West End. | |
| Phenomena in Crime 88: The [...] ‘dope czar’ was a very scared man during his lagging at Parkhurst. | |
| Sun (Sydney) 10 Nov. 2/2: ‘Plead guilty to the other six. Clean ’em all up for the one laggin’’. | |
| in Sun. Herald (Sydney) 8 June 9/5: Other English incorporations [in Australian slang] include: [...] ‘lagging,’ a term of imprisonment. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Till Human Voices Wake Us 82: All through a lagging you’re waiting to see what they’ll do to you. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Tramp at Anchor 118: All the men in the shop were experienced convicts, some with three laggings behind them. | |
| Ghost Squad 26: Thieves’ argot, spoken properly, is a foreign language which needs to be learned [...] Each prison sentence has its own word [...] ‘lagging’ for penal servitude (from the fact that years ago convicts sentenced to penal servitude were put in leg irons). | |
 | How Does Your Garden Grow? (1974) 36: ‘[M]y lagging’s all I’m trying to do!’. | |
| Hangover 87: He’s had a bellyful of laggings. | |
| Chocolate Frog (1973) 21: tosser: We was askin’ yer, nice and friendly...about yer laggin’! | |
| Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 77: Seems only like yesterday he got weighed off at the Old Bailey with a lagging. | |
| Big Huey 28: If you’re convicted on this charge [...] you’re in for a long lagging. | |
| Doing Time 192: lagging: a prison sentence. | |
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Laggin’. A sentence. | |
| Chopper 4 56: It’s great title for a lagging in jail with no release date, isn’t it? Governor’s Pleasure. |
3. a sentence of more than three years’ imprisonment.
| Rambles in New South Wales 8: An unpleasant-looking ‘expiree convict’ – otherwise (also colonially) ‘one who has served his lagging.’. | |
| Ticket-Of-Leave Man Act I: And how about the lagging! If I’m nailed it’s a lifer. | |
| Leaves from a Prison Diary I 32: Some, of course, counting one or more ‘laggings,’ or acquaintances with penal servitude, in addition [to shorter sentences]. | |
| Child of the Jago (1982) 182: It was ’im as put me away for my laggin’! | |
| Human Side of Crook and Convict Life 75: Thomas Davies [...] who served his first sentence, a ‘lagging’, fifty years ago. | |
| Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 19: Joe has five ‘laggings’ behind him. | |
| (con. 1940s) Borstal Boy 44: They can’t give you a lagging. | |
| Guntz 5: I had just finished my lagging (corrective training) and I was free as air again. | |
| Zimmer’s Essay 65: What’s your lagging? | |
| (con. 1900–30) in Samuel East End Und. 282: Lagging – A sentence of three years and over. | |
| Raiders 65: Ronnie had done [...] a lagging [three years] for possession of a firearm with intent. |
In compounds
1. transportation; e.g. lagging dues will be concerned, this person is liable to be transported.
| Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 249: lagging-dues speaking of a person likely to be transported, they say lagging dues will be concerned. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1812]. |
2. a sentence of penal servitude.
| Child of the Jago (1982) 161: As like as not it’s laggin’ dues, after ’is other convictions. |
(UK prison) a prison for long-term prisoners.
| Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 109: The underworld has clammed up tighter than a lagging station. |
In phrases
(UK und.) a sentence of seven days’ hard labour.
| Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks n.p.: Cadgers lagging: Seven days hard labour. |