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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

wag.

To swing from side to side, as an animal's tail, or someone's head to express disagreement or disbelief.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/wæɡ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/waɡ/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/wæːɡ/Australia/wɛɡ/New-Zealand
  1. To swing from side to side, as an animal's tail, or someone's head to express disagreement or disbelief.

    ambitransitive
  2. To play truant from school.

    Australia · New-Zealand · UK · slang
  3. To go; to proceed; to move; to progress.

    intransitive · obsolete
  4. To move continually, especially in gossip; said of the tongue.

    She's a real gossip: her tongue is always wagging.
  5. To leave; to depart.

    intransitive · obsolete
  6. Of the tail (lower order of the batting lineup): to score more runs than expected.

    intransitive · slang
    The tail wagged.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English waggen, probably from Old English wagian (“to wag, wave, shake”) with reinforcement from Old Norse vaga (“to wag, waddle”); both from Proto-Germanic *wagōną (“to wag”). Related to English way. The verb may be regarded as an iterative or emphatic form of waw (verb), which is often nearly synonymous; it was used, e.g., of a loose tooth. Parallel formations from the same root are the Old Norse vagga feminine, cradle (Swedish vagga, Danish vugge), Swedish vagga (“to rock a cradle”), vugge (“to rock a cradle”), Dutch wagen (“to move”), early modern German waggen (dialectal German wacken) to waver, totter. Compare waggle, verb

noun/wæɡ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/waɡ/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/wæːɡ/Australia/wɛɡ/New-Zealand
  1. An oscillating movement.

    The wag of my dog's tail expresses happiness.
  2. A witty person.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English waggen, probably from Old English wagian (“to wag, wave, shake”) with reinforcement from Old Norse vaga (“to wag, waddle”); both from Proto-Germanic *wagōną (“to wag”). Related to English way. The verb may be regarded as an iterative or emphatic form of waw (verb), which is often nearly synonymous; it was used, e.g., of a loose tooth. Parallel formations from the same root are the Old Norse vagga feminine, cradle (Swedish vagga, Danish vugge), Swedish vagga (“to rock a cradle”), vugge (“to rock a cradle”), Dutch wagen (“to move”), early modern German waggen (dialectal German wacken) to waver, totter. Compare waggle, verb

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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.