wag
Plural: wags
Noun
- a witty amusing person who makes jokes
- causing to move repeatedly from side to side
- An oscillating movement.
- A witty person.
Verb
Verb Forms: wagged, wagging, wags
- To move briskly back and forth or up and down.
- move from side to side
- "The happy dog wagged his tail"
- To swing from side to side, as an animal's tail, or someone's head to express disagreement or disbelief.
- To play truant from school.
- To go; to proceed; to move; to progress.
- To move continually, especially in gossip; said of the tongue.
- To leave; to depart.
- Of the tail (lower order of the batting lineup): to score more runs than expected.
Examples
- His dog would WAG its tail whenever he found a particularly good word in Scrabble.
- She's a real gossip: her tongue is always wagging.
- The tail wagged.
- The wag of my dog's tail expresses happiness.
Origin / Etymology
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
Scrabble Score: 7
wag: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordwag: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
wag: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary