rag

noun17

1. •
   [in the plural] Tattered clothes (clothing).

   • —What a pretty dress! —What, this old rag?
   • It's semiformal. I can't show up dressed in rags!
2. •
   A piece of old cloth, especially one used for cleaning, patching, etc.; a tattered piece of cloth; a shred or tatter.

   • Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, toss'd, / And flutter'd into rags; then reliques, beads, — 1667
3. •
   (slang) A sail, or any piece of canvas.

   • Our ship was a clipper, with every rag set, stunsails, sky-scrapers, and all. — 1864
4. •
   (slang) A curtain of various kinds.
5. •
   (slang, disapproving) A newspaper or magazine, especially one whose journalism is considered to be of poor quality.

   • "You must behave yourself, dear. Mr. Malone is a Pressman. He will have it all in his rag to-morrow, and sell an extra dozen among our neighbors." — 1912
6. •
   (slang) Sanitary napkins, pads, or other materials used to absorb menstrual discharge.

   • "It's heaviest on the first day, which might be why it hurts so much. After that, it slows down and eventually stops, but you'll need the rags for about a week." — 2020
7. •
   A ragtime song, dance or piece of music.
8. •
   (UK, Ireland) A society run by university students for the purpose of charitable fundraising.
9. •
   (old-fashioned) A person suffering from exhaustion or lack of energy.

   • "It took it out of me, though. I'm a rag this morning." "They work you too hard, dear." — 1925
10. •
    A ragged edge in metalworking.
11. •
    An uneven vertical margin (of a block of type).

    • We always leave rag on article typeset for the web.
12. •
    (offensive) A shabby, beggarly person; synonym of ragamuffin.

    • For upon the like Proclamation there, they all came in, both tag and rag — 1596
13. •
    (old-fashioned) A prank or practical joke.

    • The rascal winked and grinned. 'There are always and means,' said he. 'But don't blame your foreman. He thought it was just a rag. I swapped clothes with his assistant, and in I came.' — 1929
14. •
    A coarse kind of rock, somewhat cellular in texture; ragstone.

    • the three walls around the garden, each one of thirty-three feet, were built out of three layers of stone — pebble stone, flint and rag stone. — 2003
15. •
    A poor, low-ranking kicker.

    • I have ace-four on my hand. In other words, I have ace-rag.
16. •
    (slang, no longer used) A banknote.
17. •
    (US, no longer used) An informal dance party featuring music played by African-American string bands.

verb12

1. •
   To scold or tell off; to torment; to banter.

   • “Yesterday it was Mademoiselle Daubreuil, today it is Mademoiselle—Cinderella! Decidedly you have the heart of a Turk, Hastings! You should establish a harem!” “It’s all very well to rag me. […]” — 1923
2. •
   To tease or torment, especially at a university; to bully, to haze.
3. •
   To add syncopation (to a tune) and thereby make it appropriate for a ragtime song.
4. •
   (informal) To play or compose (a piece, melody, etc.) in syncopated time.

   • Now let's rag it. We'll keep the notes more or less the same but make the rhythm more fun. — 2020
5. •
   To decorate (a wall, etc.) by applying paint with a rag.
6. •
   Of dogs, to bite an object, often a toy or leash, and vigorously shake their head.
7. •
   (UK, slang) To drive a car or another vehicle in a hard, fast, or unsympathetic manner.
8. •
   (informal) To dance to ragtime music.
9. •
   (slang, vulgar) To menstruate.
10. •
    To become tattered.
11. •
    To cut or dress roughly, as a grindstone.
12. •
    To break (ore) into lumps for sorting.

noun1

1. •
   Initialism of retrieval-augmented generation: a method of augmenting performance of LLMs (large language models) by serving them a curated selection of data input, via a combination of relevant data libraries and on-the-fly but relevant search results.

   • Moreover, the effectiveness of RAG might decrease if the knowledge base becomes “polluted” by LLM-generated content. — 2025