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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

lag.

Late.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/læɡ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/laɡ/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/læːɡ/Australia/lɛɡ/New-Zealand

  1. Late.

  2. Last; long-delayed.

    obsolete

  3. Last made; hence, made of refuse; inferior.

Where this word comes from

Of unknown origin. Possibly of North Germanic origin.

noun/læɡ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/laɡ/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/læːɡ/Australia/lɛɡ/New-Zealand

  1. A gap, a delay; an interval created by something not keeping up; a latency.

    countable

  2. Delay; latency.

    uncountable

  3. One sentenced to transportation for a crime.

    Ireland · UK · archaic · countable · slang · uncountable

  4. A prisoner, a criminal.

    Ireland · UK · countable · slang · uncountable

  5. A period of imprisonment.

    countable · slang · uncountable

  6. A method of deciding which player is to start. Both players simultaneously strike a cue ball from the baulk line to hit the top cushion and rebound down the table; the player whose ball finishes closest to the baulk cushion wins.

    countable · uncountable

  7. One who lags; that which comes in last.

    countable · uncountable

  8. The fag-end; the rump; hence, the lowest class.

    countable · uncountable

  9. A stave of a cask, drum, etc.; especially (engineering) one of the narrow boards or staves forming the covering of a cylindrical object, such as a boiler, or the cylinder of a carding machine or steam engine.

    countable · uncountable

  10. Clipping of lag screw.

    US · abbreviation · alt-of · clipping · countable · uncountable

  11. A bird, the greylag.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Of unknown origin. Possibly of North Germanic origin.

verb/læɡ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/laɡ/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/læːɡ/Australia/lɛɡ/New-Zealand

  1. To fail to keep up (the pace), to fall behind.

  2. To cover (for example, pipes) with felt strips or similar material.

  3. To respond slowly.

    informal
    My phone is starting to lag.

  4. To transport as a punishment for crime.

    UK · archaic · slang

  5. To arrest or apprehend.

    slang

  6. To slacken

    transitive
    Interest in the scandal will never lag.
Where this word comes from

Of unknown origin. Possibly of North Germanic origin.

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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.