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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

blag.

An armed robbery or robbery involving violence; also, theft.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/blæɡ/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/blaɡ/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/blæːɡ/Australia/blɛɡ/New-Zealand
  1. An armed robbery or robbery involving violence; also, theft.

    UK · slang
Where this word comes from

The origin of the noun is unknown. The verb is derived from the noun.

verb/blæɡ/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/blaɡ/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/blæːɡ/Australia/blɛɡ/New-Zealand
  1. To obtain (something) through armed robbery or robbery involving violence, or theft; to rob; to steal.

    UK · slang · transitive
Where this word comes from

The origin of the noun is unknown. The verb is derived from the noun.

verb/blæɡ/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/blaɡ/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/blæːɡ/Australia/blɛɡ/New-Zealand
  1. To obtain (something) for free, particularly by guile or persuasion.

    Ireland · UK · informal · transitive
    Can I blag a fag?
    He’s blagged his way into many a party.
  2. To obtain (something) for free, particularly by guile or persuasion. To obtain (confidential information) by impersonation or other deception; also, to deceive (someone) into disclosing confidential information.

    Ireland · UK · informal · specifically · transitive
    The newspaper is accused of blagging details of the prime minister’s flat purchase from his solicitors.
  3. To obtain (something desired), or avoid (something undesired), through improvisation or luck; to fluke, to get away with.

    Ireland · UK · informal · transitive
  4. To use guile or persuasion on (someone); also, to deceive or perpetrate a hoax on (someone).

    Ireland · UK · informal · transitive
  5. To meet and seduce (someone) for romantic purposes, especially in a social situation; to pick up.

    Ireland · Polari · UK · informal · transitive
  6. To speak persuasively or with guile to obtain something.

    Ireland · UK · informal · intransitive
Where this word comes from

The origin of the verb is uncertain; it is possibly: * from blag (“to rob; to steal”) (see etymology 1); or * borrowed from French blaguer (“to joke (about); to tell a lie”), from blague (“pouch, especially for tobacco; joke (from the notion of something puffed up, and thus fanciful)”) (from Dutch balg (“leather bag”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵʰ- (“to swell”)) + -er (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs). The adjective and noun are probably derived from the verb.

adj/blæɡ/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/blaɡ/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/blæːɡ/Australia/blɛɡ/New-Zealand
  1. Not genuine; fake.

    Ireland · UK · informal
    You’re wearing a blag designer shirt!
Where this word comes from

The origin of the verb is uncertain; it is possibly: * from blag (“to rob; to steal”) (see etymology 1); or * borrowed from French blaguer (“to joke (about); to tell a lie”), from blague (“pouch, especially for tobacco; joke (from the notion of something puffed up, and thus fanciful)”) (from Dutch balg (“leather bag”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵʰ- (“to swell”)) + -er (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs). The adjective and noun are probably derived from the verb.

noun/blæɡ/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/blaɡ/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/blæːɡ/Australia/blɛɡ/New-Zealand
  1. An attempt to obtain, or the means of obtaining, something by guile or persuasion; a trick.

    Ireland · UK · informal
    A good blag to get into a nightclub is to walk in carrying a record box.
  2. An act of deceiving; a con, a deception, a hoax.

    Ireland · UK · informal
Where this word comes from

The origin of the verb is uncertain; it is possibly: * from blag (“to rob; to steal”) (see etymology 1); or * borrowed from French blaguer (“to joke (about); to tell a lie”), from blague (“pouch, especially for tobacco; joke (from the notion of something puffed up, and thus fanciful)”) (from Dutch balg (“leather bag”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵʰ- (“to swell”)) + -er (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs). The adjective and noun are probably derived from the verb.

noun/blæɡ/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/blaɡ/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/blæːɡ/Australia/blɛɡ/New-Zealand
  1. Deliberate misspelling of blog.

    Ireland · UK · alt-of · deliberate · humorous · informal · misspelling
Where this word comes from

Coined by the American author, cartoonist, and engineer Randall Munroe (born 1984) in his webcomic xkcd in 2006: see the quotation.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.