Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the rabble, the masses, also attrib.

1577		Holinshed Irish Chronicle 54: The whole towne was assembled, tagge & ragge, cutte and long tayle.
1579		S. Gosson School of Abuse (1868) 45: Euerye one which comes to buye their Iestes, shall haue an honest neighbour, tagge and ragge, cutte and longe tayle, goe thither and spare not, otherwise I aduise you to keep you thence.
1583		P. Stubbes Anatomie of Abuses 16: Every one, tagge and ragge, goe brauer, or, at least, as braue as those that be bothe noble, honourable and worshipfull.
c.1600		Timon in Dyce (1842) I iv: I am not one of the raggs / Or fagg end of the people.
1607		Shakespeare Coriolanus III i: Will you hence, Before the tag return?
1610		Jonson Alchemist V ii: Gallants, men, and women, / And of all sorts, tag-rag, been seen to flock here.
1632		D. Lupton London and the Countrey Carbonadoed 88: Ale Houses [...] The Hostess [...] must entertaine all, good and bad; Tag, and Rag; Cut and Longtayle.
1637		T. Heywood Royal King and Loyal Subject I i: Stood I but in the midst of my followers, I might say I had nothing about me but a tagge and a ragge.
a.1661		‘Rebellion’ Rump Poems and Songs (1662) I 291: Speak tag and rag, short coat and long.
c.1670		Purgatorium Hibernicum 10: Tagg ragg & longtayl for their pray.
1678		J. Ray Proverbs (2nd edn) 76: Every one that can lick a dish: as much to say, as every one simpliciter, tag rag and bobtail.
1682		‘Whigs’ Disappointment’ in Ebsworth Roxburghe Ballads (1889) VI:1 147: Tag, Rag, and long-tail were all to come in, / To sit at this King of Poland’s table.
1685		‘A Scholar’ Maggots 111: So Tag-Rag, and Bob-tail to dancing do throng, / And th’ Flower of—come flaming along.
1690		‘Teague’ Teagueland Jests II 145: Such a Rabble of Tag, Rag and Bob-tail .
1699		N. Ward London Spy VI 147: Tag, Rag, and Bob-Tail, were Promiscuously jumbled amongst City Quality from Beau to Booby.
1709		N. Ward Compleat and Humorous Account of Remarkable Clubs (1756) 77: A sweaty Crew of Tag-Rag, and Bob-Tail.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy IV 113: Fall Back, or fall Edge, I never shall bound be, / To make Match with Tag-rag, and long-tail.
1761		Nancy Dawson’s Jests 30: How grand to the gallows the doctor will pass, / With tag-rag and bobtail to follow his a—e!
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 50: If the tag-rags agree to go, / The captains then must roar out, No.
1785		L. Macnally Fashionable Levities II iii: Ecod she’ll never remember half of her servant’s names! but o’ tag, rag, and bobtail.
c.1790		‘Cobler’s Fumeral’ in Holloway & Black I (1975) 60: Then tagg ragg and bobtail they made up the throng.
1800		P. Colquhoun Commerce and Police of the River Thames 75: That lowest class of the community who are vulgarly denominated the Tag-Rag and Bobtail.
1813		P. Hawker Diary (1893) I 22 Feb. 68: We had no sooner left the coach than it was mobbed by tag rag, and bob-tail.
1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 6: With which the tag-rag will have nothing to do.
1828		High Life in London 10 Feb. 8/2: [T]hat class of animals omitted by Linnaeus, but very satisfactorily defined by the arbiter elegantiarum of the Fancy, as tag-rag-and-bobtail!
1829		Sydney Gaz. 11 Apr. 3/3: I have been preyed upon by sharks, sharpers, flash-men, fencers, rum coves, squatters, nippers, lifters, and all the tag-rag-and-bobtail denoted by the worst words in the Slang Dictionary.
1830		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) 3 July 3/2: All the tag-rag and bob-tail attacked [sic] to the skeleton Hawk and Buzzard.
1831		Satirist (London) 24 Apr. 17/2: [H]e observed the three defendants, followed by a mob of tag, rag, and bobtail, sauntering along the gutters.
1834		Ely’s Hawk and Buzzard (N.Y.) 21 June 1/1: There are 62 berths on the lower floor, five tiers high, which are filled every night with all the rag tag and bob-tail scouring of our wharves.
1838		‘Alfred Crowquill’ Seymour’s Humourous Sketches (1866) 50: But they’re so wulgar, Bob, and call sich names / As quite the tag-rag of St. Giles’ shames.
1840		R. Barham ‘Row in an Omnibus’ Ingoldsby Legends (1842) 214: The separate crews Of the Tags and the Rags, and the No-one-knows-whos.
1841		‘Miseries Of A Lord Mayor’ Dublin Comic Songster 278: But tag-rag and bob-tail must all have a stare.
1849		Paul Pry 12 Feb. n.p.: Their days are spent nobody knows how, and their nights at the Brown Bear, where they mix with all the oriental riff-raff, tag-rag, and bob-tail of this swarming metropolis.
1850		(con. 1843) Melville White-Jacket (1990) 9: They are the tag-rag and bob-tail of the crew; and he who is good for nothing else is good enough for a waister.
1853		Southern Literary Messenger Apr. 221: The cry of fire brought out the fire engines and companies, and the rag, tag and bobtail boys and negroes that follow on shouting.
1855		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Feb. 21/2: [T]he tag rag and bobtail who play at football in Fort William.
1867		‘Under the Earth’ Dick’s Standard Plays (1871) II iii: I am a bit of dirty riffraff, sir – a dirty, genuine scrap of tag, rag, and bobtail.
1867		J. Greenwood Unsentimental Journeys 191: The brushers and bruisers, and rag and tag generally, aiming aimlesly at that ‘bob’ which is always to be picked up here.
1872		‘Mark Twain’ Roughing It 28: I am [‘offish’] with the rag-tag and bob-tail, and a gal has to be.
1881		N.Z. Observer (Auckland) 5 Feb. 207/2: Away went firemen, and away went all the tag-rag and bobtail.
1885		J.S. Borlase Blue Cap, the Bushranger 63/2: The stalls of the tag-rag and bobtail who attend the races.
1885		L. Emanuel Jottings [...] of a Bengal ‘qui hye’ 57: A numerous, and not select, ‘tag, rag and bobtail’ of [...] villagers acting as beaters.
1886		Sporting Times 17 Apr. 2/2: Lord Hartington has shown a pluck in defying unpopularity among the tag, rag and bobtail.
1894		‘Mark Twain’ Pudd’nhead Wilson 168: I want you to come down here by-and-by and work privately among the rag-tag and bob-tail.
1895		Mirror of Life 5 Jan. 14/2: If men who run boxing shows would close the door on the ‘rag’ element, and employ men [...] with untarnished reputations [...] [W]e heard a wealthy gentleman remark the other night that the reason he paid toll to a set of ‘rags’ was because he was merely purchasing his freedom and safety from mob violence.
1895		J. Greenwood Behind A Bus 84: A cheap excursion for which no one but the tag-rag of the community was eligible.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 83: Tag-Rag and Bobtail, a crowd of the lower order of people.
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 2 Feb. 276: The place is full of tag, rag and bobtail.
1901		D. Cotsford Society Snapshots 293: How on earth did that tag-rag [i.e. a woman] get in here?
1922		Joyce Ulysses 401: A tag and bobtail of all of them after, cockerel, jackanapes, welsher, pilldoctor.
1929		B. Duffy Rocky Road 89: I don’t like the idea of her mixin’ with the rag-tag and bob-tail of the road and streets.
1935		E.F. Benson Mapp and Lucia (1984) 112: The rag-tag and bob-tail of Tilling passing through my hall and my sweet little sitting-room.
1940		O. Strange Sudden Takes the Trail 57: Known as ‘Dirty Dick’s’ [...] it was frequented only by the tag-rag of the town.
1947		S.J. Perelman ‘No Dearth of Mirth’ Keep It Crisp 83: We’ve got to winnow out the ragtag and bobtail.
1959		A. Sinclair Breaking of Bumbo (1961) 67: Speaking up for strikers, oppressed races, and art, and other leftish rag, tag and bobtail.
1986		O. Senior ‘Country of the One Eye God’ Summer Lightning 24: Him no business with rag tag and bobtail like unno.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1820		Morn. Post 15 Aug. 1/4: In the dim eyes of vulgar judges, tag, rag and bobtail politicians.
1849		J.P. Townsend Rambles in New South Wales 92: They were a rag-tag and bobtail congregation.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 21 Oct. 2/1: The most ungodly set they are, too, those unheard-of rag-tag and bob-tail militia.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Jan. 13/1: Rally up, and let all the rag-tag and bobtail bummers from Struggle Town to Canterbury gird on their whiskey-proof armour.
1909		‘O. Henry’ Roads of Destiny 268: I see now what a little, rag-tag, bob-tail, gotch-eared department I’ve been put in charge of.
1996		R. Rendell Keys to the Street 187: They were a rag, tag and bobtail crew, shuffling along these immaculate paths.
2001		A. Sillitoe Birthday 73: He knew the rag-tag-and-bob-tailed bastards well.

3. everyone, the whole lot.

1535

Bygod in Oliphant New Eng. I 4810: Bygod has ‘your fathers were wyse, both tagge and rag’; that is one and all [F&H].