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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

nag.

A small horse; a pony.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈnæɡ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈnaɡ/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/ˈnæːɡ/Australia/ˈnɛɡ/New-Zealand

  1. A small horse; a pony.

  2. An old, useless horse.

  3. A paramour.

    derogatory · obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English nagg, nage, nagge (“horse, small riding horse, pony”), cognate with Dutch negge, neg (“horse”), German Nickel (“small horse”). Perhaps related to English neigh.

verb/ˈnæɡ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈnaɡ/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/ˈnæːɡ/Australia/ˈnɛɡ/New-Zealand

  1. To repeatedly remind or complain to (someone) in an annoying way, often about insignificant or unnecessary matters.

    ambitransitive

  2. To bother with persistent thoughts or memories.

    The notion that he forgot something nagged him the rest of the day.

  3. To bother or disturb persistently in any way.

Where this word comes from

Probably from a North Germanic source; compare Swedish nagga (“to gnaw, grumble”), Danish nage (“to nag, bother”), Icelandic nagga (“to complain”). Compare typologically fret, Bulgarian глождя (gloždja), Russian глода́ть (glodátʹ), грызть (gryztʹ), по́едом есть (pójedom jestʹ), е́дкий (jédkij).

noun/ˈnæɡ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈnaɡ/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/ˈnæːɡ/Australia/ˈnɛɡ/New-Zealand

  1. Someone or something that nags.

  2. A repeated complaint or reminder.

  3. A persistent, bothersome thought or worry.

Where this word comes from

Probably from a North Germanic source; compare Swedish nagga (“to gnaw, grumble”), Danish nage (“to nag, bother”), Icelandic nagga (“to complain”). Compare typologically fret, Bulgarian глождя (gloždja), Russian глода́ть (glodátʹ), грызть (gryztʹ), по́едом есть (pójedom jestʹ), е́дкий (jédkij).

noun/ˈnæɡ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈnaɡ/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/ˈnæːɡ/Australia/ˈnɛɡ/New-Zealand

  1. Misspelling of knack.

    alt-of · misspelling
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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.