Noun

(en noun)

(US, technical) In textile inspections, a rough or coarse defect in the woven fabric.

(UK, Ireland, Australia, colloquial, dated in US and Canada) A cigarette.

* 1968 January 25, The Bulletin, Oregon ,

He?d Phase Out Fag Industry

Los Angeles (UPI) - A UCLA professor has called for the phasing out of the cigarette industry by converting tobacco acres to other crops.

* 2001 , (2001), 15,

All of them, like my mother, were heavy smokers, and after warming themselves by the fire, they would sit on the sofa and smoke, lobbing their web fag ends into the fire.

* 2011 , Bill Marsh, Great Australian Shearing Stories , unnumbered page,

So I started off by asking the shearers if they minded if I took a belly off while they were having a fag'. Then after a while they were asking me. They?d say, ‘Do yer wanta take over fer a bit while I have a '''fag'''?’ And then I got better and I?d finish the sheep and they?d say ‘Christ, I haven?t finished me bloody ' fag yet, yer may as well shear anotherie.’

(UK, obsolete, colloquial) The worst part or end of a thing.

* {{quote-book

, year=1788 , editor=William Perry , title=The Royal standard English dictionary? citation , passage=Fag , s. the worst part or end of anything.}}

Noun

(en noun)

(British, colloquial) A chore; an arduous and tiresome task.

* 1818 , '', 1992, ''Complete Works of Jane Austen , unnumbered page,

We are sadly off in the country; not but what we have very good shops in Salisbury, but it is so far to go—eight miles is a long way; Mr. Allen says it is nine, measured nine; but I am sure it cannot be more than eight; and it is such a fag —I come back tired to death.

(British, archaic, colloquial) In many British boarding schools, a younger student acting as a servant for senior students.

* 1791 , Simon Sapling (pseudonym), Richard Cumberland, The Observer: A Collection of Moral, Literary and Familiar Essays , Volume 4, page 67,

I had the character at ?chool of being the very be?t fag that ever came into it.

Noun

(en noun)

(vulgar, offensive) A homosexual person.

* 1921 John Lind, The Female Impersonators ( Historical Documentation of American Slang v. 1, A-G, edited by Jonathan E. Lighter (New York: Random House, 1994) page 716.

Androgynes known as “fairies,” “fags,” or “brownies.”

* {{quote-journal

, year=1926 , author=American Neurological Association , coauthors=New York Neurological Association et al , journal=Journal of nervous and mental disease , volume=94 , page=467 citation , passage=In schizophrenics, however, the homosexual outlet is sooner or later ... ideas that strangers call them "cs," "fairy," "woman," "fag ," " fruit," etc.). ... }}

* 2006 , Lynn Mickelsen, Confusion Turned to Chaos

A couple of days later, Trisha tells Madelyn there is a rumor going around that she's a fag .

* {{quote-book

, year=2008 , author=Paul Ryan Brewer , title=Value war: public opinion and the politics of gay rights , page=60 citation , isbn=0742562115, 9780742562110 , passage=... what appeared to be overt appeals to anti-gay sentiment. When House Majority Whip Dick Armey referred to fellow Congressman Barney Frank as "Barney Fag " in 1995, he suffered a barage of negative publicity that prompted him to explain his choice of words as a slip of the tongue.}}

# (colloquial, disparaging) In particular, a conspicuously non-straight-acting homosexual male.

(US, vulgar, offensive) An annoying person.

Why did you do that, you fag ?