wag, v. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

wag v.

[SE vagrant]

1. (also wag off) to leave, to walk slowly.

1675		Wycherley Country-Wife IV iv: I will not wag without you.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c 354: She’ll lie there long enough, before she wags out of the Dock.
1799		W. Cowper Yearly Distress in Milford Poetical Works (1934) 299: ‘Come, neighbours, we must wag’ – The money chinks, down drop their chins, Each lugging out his bag.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Aug. 5/3: But the Queen’s ‘moke’ had not come on board – was probably ‘wagging’ it on the Nile chewing thistles.
1940		in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 3: He picked one up all by the backbone / And he put him on his shoulder and he wagged [?] off home.

2. (Aus., also play wag, wag it, wag off) to play truant; thus wagging n.

1848		Dickens Dombey And Son (1970) 379: ‘Wag, Sir. Wagging from school.’ ‘Do you mean pretending to go there, and not going?’ said Mr Carker. ‘Yes, Sir, that’s wagging, Sir.’.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 25 Sept. 9/2: When Julius Caesar used to wear a ‘pinny’ and ‘wag it’ down to the Tiber Creek to smoke bits of cane and old ‘sojers’.
1882		Aus. Town & Country Jrnl 3 June 15/2: No Wagging — The school attendance officer is among us taking notes.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 20 July 2/1: Did we ‘wag’ to play ‘bushrangers’ in the timber near the creek?
1895		Coburg Leader (Vic.) 28 Sept. 4/2: Pev is going to wag from church to-morrow night and take Sally for a walk.
1895		Coburg Leader (Vic.) 5 Oct. 4/2: Sammy G. wagged it from church last Sunday.
1904		‘Dads Wayback’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 3 Jan. 1/7: ‘[A] cove that shirks them lessons by taking a billet where he is only a machine is playin’ wag ter ther school o’ life’.
1906		Punch (Melbourne) 27 Sept. 4/2: Our ruck was abeowt as rapid as a school kid goin’ inter ther ’ead’s room to ’ave six cuts for waggin’ it.
1914		Register (Adelaide) 20 May 8/7: Previous to his being locked up for a week he had been ‘wagging’ from school.
1929		Brisbane Courier 17 May 14/7: He had received a hiding for wagging school.
1933		N. Lindsay Saturdee 201: He went to school that afternoon, though he intended to spend it a-wagging.
1943		Cairns Post (Qld) 9 Mar. 1/8: More children are ‘wagging’ school now than for some years.
1954		Argus (Melbourne) 30/1: School-wagging forgiven [...] A little boy who used to ‘wag’ school to go horseriding yesterday rode in a race.
1959		G. Slatter Gun in My Hand 150: Des who got caned for wagging the French test.
1959		I. & P. Opie Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 397: ‘Hopping the wag’, ‘wagging school’, or ‘wagging it.’.
1968		G. Slatter Pagan Game (1969) 15: He never wagged lectures to go on a pub crawl.
1976		Aus. Women’s Wkly 3 Mar. 75/3: Wagging School. Our whole family is upset because our 12-year-old son has been playing truant.
1996		P. Temple Bad Debts (2012) [ebook] This is me boy Tom, waggin school.
2003		Brummagem Dict. 🌐 wag vt. to play truant. ‘I wagged the afternoon off.’ ‘I was copped waggin’ it.’.
2007		D. McDonald Luck in the Greater West (2008) 1: What class ya got now? [...] I got commerce. I’m thinkin’ of waggin’ but.
2015		Twitter 9 Apr. 🌐 In 1981 I wagged school with mates to see MAD MAX 2. It blew my young male mind.
2019		C. Hammer Silver [ebook] Wagging school and smoking cigarettes among the dunes.

3. (US black) to procrastinate, to find it hard to make any decisions.

1983

R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].

4. (US campus) to act without underlying knowledge.

2016

C. Eble (ed.) UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2016 11: WAG — make a largely uninformed guess: ‘I wagged that exam’; ‘I don’t know how to install this car stereo—I’m going to wag it’.

In phrases

wag it (v.)

to play truant.

1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 155: My word, I thought he’d been waggin’ it from some o’ them Gov’ment institoosh’ns.
1889		Bathhurst Free Press 23 Mar. 2: Defendent said she sent her boy [to school] regularly but he ‘wagged it’.
1894		H. Lawson ‘An Echo from the Old Bark School’ in Roderick (1972) 244: Bill was ‘wagging it.’.
1901		W.S. Walker In the Blood 13: They had ‘wagged it’ from school, as they termed it, which was an unvarying practice of theirs, and meant truancy in all its forms.
1933		N. Lindsay Saturdee 208: Peter wagged it for a week.
1949		L. Glassop Lucky Palmer 4: Whenever he could ‘wag’ it from school on Thursdays he did the call for Ross Harrison.
1959		I. & P. Opie Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 397: ‘Hopping the wag’, ‘wagging school’, or ‘wagging it.’.
1969		A. Buzo Rooted I iii: We used to wag it together.
2001		OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 wag n. to abscond from school without permission e.g. ‘he wagged it yesterday.’.
2003		Brummagem Dict. 🌐 wag vt. to play truant. ‘I wagged the afternoon off.’ ‘I was copped waggin’ it.’.

SE in slang uses

In compounds

wag-halter (n.)

a term of abuse, lit. one whose body causes the hangman’s noose to sway.

1562		J. Heywood Proverbs (1906) II:vii: Every good thing / Thou lettest even slip, like a waghalter slipstring [ibid.] 439: [ed. note: a gallows bird, one rope-ripe but who has cheated the gallows].
1577		Misogonus in Farmer (1906) IV ii: Stand out of my way, waghalter! or I will breech thee nak’d.
1594		Lyly Mother Bombie II iv: I’ll teach my wag-halter to know grapes from barley.
1613		Marston Insatiate Countess I: Or what say you to a fine scaling ladder of ropes? I can tell you, I am a mad wag-halter.
c.1635		J. Ford Fancies Chaste & Noble I ii: Not so terrible as a cross-tree that never grows, to a wag-halter.
1728		A. Boyer Royal Dict. n.p.: A wag halter, Un pendant.

In phrases

wag hemp in the wind (v.) [the hempen rope]

to be hanged.

1532

T. More Confutation of Tyndale Answer VIII Pt II 788: Tyndale calleth blessyng and crossyng but waggyng of folkes fyngers in the ayre, and fereth not (lyke one that wolde at length wagge hempe in the wynd) to mocke at all such myracles.

wag one’s chin (v.) (also ...jaw, ...tongue)

to talk, to gossip.

1707		Humours of a Coffee-House 3 Oct. 30: Hang News, it’s good for nothing as I know on, but to make Mechanick Politicians wag their Chins over their Ninny-Broth.
1774		Imitations of the Characters of Theophrastus 10: The Babbler [...] He’ll scrape acquaintance and begin / Familiarly to wag his chin.
1847		Thackeray Punch’s Prize Novelists: The Stars and Stripes in Burlesques (1903) 227: ‘I can follow the talk of a Pawnee,’ he said, ‘or wag my jaw, if so be necessity bids me to speak.’.
1848		(ref. to 1819) Manchester Times 28 Oct. 2/1: Just published: The Bairnsla Fuak’s Annual [...] for 1819 [...] A Cumpany we Widda Wagjaw, Fanny Frumper, Betty Barrellweight and Lindy All-lip.
1865		T. Archer Pauper, Thief and Convict 140: There mayn’t be false swearing, call it what you like, but they wag their jaws to a lie.
1887		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Oct. 14/4: While the Jingo priest of platitudes (for which he’s overpaid) / Wags his chin against all ‘scribblers,’ ever ready with their aid / To make a speech read trippingly which properly is lame.
1939		H. Miller Tropic of Capricorn (1964) 35: That made him wag his tongue some more.

wag one’s chops (v.)

see under chops n.¹

wag one’s tail (v.) [tail n. (2)]

of a woman, to act in a promiscuous manner; to be a prostitute; thus tail-wagging n.

1696		Motteux (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk V 633: They were most nimble at wriggling the buttocks, and more diligent in tail-wagging than any water-wagtails, perpetually jogging and shaking their double rumps.
c.1800		‘Tweedmouth Town’ in Burns Merry Muses of Caledonia (1965) 195: An’ there likewise liv’d three wives, / Who sometimes wagged their tale. [...] Shall we, quo they, ne’er sport or play, / Nor wag our tails again.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 33: Battre le briquet = to copulate; ‘to wag one’s tail.’.