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nag

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: nag-, näg, and nǡǵ

English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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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.

Noun

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nag (plural nags)

  1. A small horse; a pony.
  3. An old, useless horse.
    Synonyms: (Northern England, Scotland, dialectal, archaic) aver, dobbin, hack, jade, plug
    • 2011, James Ellroy, Clandestine, →ISBN, page 245:
      We used to lure the nags into the back of our truck with oats and sugar, then we'd drive back to town to this warehouse and inject the nags with small quantities of morphine I'd stolen.
  4. (obsolete, derogatory) A paramour.
Coordinate terms
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  • (old useless horse): bum (racing)
Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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Probably from a North Germanic source; compare Swedish nagga (“to gnaw, grumble”), Danish nage, Icelandic nagga (“to complain”).

Verb

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nag (third-person singular simple present nags, present participle nagging, simple past and past participle nagged)

  1. (transitive, intransitive) To repeatedly remind or complain to (someone) in an annoying way, often about insignificant or unnecessary matters.
    • 2006, Jerry Day, How to Raise Kids You Want to Keep, →ISBN:
      The room is never cleaned, so her mother nags and nags until she explodes with frustration and threatens to sell her to the lowest bidder.
    Anyone would think that I nagged at you, Amanda! (From Amanda! by Robin Klein)
  2. To bother with persistent thoughts or memories.
    • 2010, John David Wells, Diamonds of Affection and Other Stories, →ISBN, page 100:
      I guess it happens all the time in crime stories where the detective suddenly remembers a bit of conversation that nags him in some way, then for some inexplicable reason, it's just right there in front of you, like a sign pointing 'here!
    • 2010, John Goldingay, Key Questions about Christian Faith: Old Testament Answers, →ISBN:
      Sometimes I write because there is a question that nags at me, sometimes because there is a question that nags at other people.
    • 2013, Ra Page, L.E. Yates, Ann Winter, Parenthesis: A New Generation in Short Fiction:
      You are sleeping on your side in the bed in your flat, heavily embroiled in a dream which sucks and nags at you and makes no sense; an old primary school teacher is there and a cat you have to take to a supermarket; you are in a canoe.
    The notion that he forgot something nagged him the rest of the day.
  3. To bother or disturb persistently in any way.
    • 1999, Tim Parks, Adultery and Other Diversions, →ISBN:
      But at night, around the uncertain edge of dreams, and when the wind nags, there are few whom an odd sound will not thrill
    • 2013, Tina Egnoski, Perishables, →ISBN:
      When a breeze comes up and nags the surface, it sparkles like a gemstone.
    • 2014, James Lane Allen, The Last Christmas Tree: An Idyl of Immortality, →ISBN, page 8:
      We are well accustomed as we look out upon Nature at close range to see great creatures harrassed[sic] by little creatures. The lot of each big one seems to be in the keeping of some little one, which never quits it, nags it, stings it, wears it out, drives it desperate, makes life somewhat a burden to it and death somewhat a relief.
    a nagging pain in his left knee
    a nagging north wind
Synonyms
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  • (continually remind or complain): ride
  • (bother with thoughts or memories): haunt
  • (persistently bother or annoy): worry
Derived terms
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Translations
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Noun

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nag (plural nags)

  1. Someone or something that nags.
    • 2011, M.C. Beaton -, Death of a Nag, →ISBN:
      'That fellow is a nag.' 'Aye, the worst kind,' agreed Hamish, and then smiled, and at that smile, Miss Gunnery thawed even more.
    • 2014, Louise Hathaway, Nags, Sluts, and A Deep-Breasted Soulmate from the Shining City, →ISBN:
      When we see Wolfe struggling with many depictions of woman characters throughout the novel (the earlier ones being nags and white trash), we greatly admire the development of this living tribute to Aline Bernstein, a woman whom he ends up despising in his later life.
    • 2015 -, Dwight McNeill, Using Person-Centered Health Analytics to Live Longer, →ISBN:
      But, pchA has to produce more than awareness, always-on alerts/nags, or edu-tainment.
  2. A repeated complaint or reminder.
    • 2011, Mike Bryant, Peter Mabbutt, Hypnotherapy For Dummies, →ISBN:
      And finally the biggest thank you of all to my partner Steven Winston for your love, enthusiasm, encouragement, support, humour, nags, and glasses of wine.
    • 2015, Steve Brookstein, Getting Over the X, →ISBN, page 58:
      I turned it on Eileen and threw in a couple of my normal nags about her driving.
    • 2016, Suzie Hayman, John Coleman, Parents and Digital Technology: How to Raise the Connected Generation, →ISBN:
      A girl who expects her mother to nag her about her untidy bedroom will hear that message, even though the mother may want to talk about something quite different, so a loving invitiation to go shopping that started "When you've finished in your bedroom this morning. . ." might result in the child screaming, storming out and slamming the door because she expected this to be a nag about the state of the room and didn't let you finish with “ . . . shall we go to the shopping centre?”.
  3. A persistent, bothersome thought or worry.
    • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 152:
      All that while there was a little nag going on at the back of his mind, which he strove to disregard. But it insisted on attention, and to get rid of it he put down his palette abruptly and got out his mustard-tin cash-box and counted his money.
    • 2009, James Swift, How I Survived Three Years at a Two-Year Community College, →ISBN:
      During my lengthy aerobic strolls (which more or less served as a tool of meditation), that thought about “college” became a persistent nag.
    • 2014, Graham Allcott, How to be a Productivity Ninja, →ISBN:
      There are two ways to get rid of our nags. We can either use Ninja decision-making to turn them quickly into actions, stored in our second brain to be revisited when we have some time. Or we can simply just capture and collect the nag, knowing that our systems will ensure we return to it later.
    • 2016, Sarah Lowndes, The DIY Movement in Art, Music and Publishing, →ISBN:
      That feeling turned into a very persistent nag.
Synonyms
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Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 3

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Noun

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nag

  1. Misspelling of knack.

References

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See also

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Anagrams

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Afrikaans

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Etymology

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From Dutch nacht (“night”), from Middle Dutch nacht, from Old Dutch naht, from Proto-Germanic *nahts, from Proto-Indo-European *nókʷts.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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nag (plural nagte)

  1. The period between sunset and sunrise, when the sky is dark; night.
  2. (countable) darkness.

Colán

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Noun

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nag

  1. moon

Danish

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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nag n (singular definite naget, not used in plural form)

  1. grudge

Derived terms

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Verb

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nag

  1. imperative of nage

Gaikundi

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Noun

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nag

  1. sago

Further reading

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German

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Pronunciation

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Verb

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nag

  1. singular imperative of nagen
  2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of nagen

Serbo-Croatian

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Etymology

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Inherited from Proto-Slavic *nagъ, from Proto-Balto-Slavic *nōˀgás, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *nogʷós (“naked”).

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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nȃg (Cyrillic spelling на̑г, definite nȃgī)

  1. naked
    Synonyms: gȏl, gȏ

Declension

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indefinite forms
singular masculine feminine neuter
nominative nag naga nago
genitive naga nage naga
dative nagu nagoj nagu
accusative inanimate
animate 		nag
naga 		nagu nago
vocative nag naga nago
locative nagu nagoj nagu
instrumental nagim nagom nagim
plural masculine feminine neuter
nominative nagi nage naga
genitive nagih nagih nagih
dative nagim(a) nagim(a) nagim(a)
accusative nage nage naga
vocative nagi nage naga
locative nagim(a) nagim(a) nagim(a)
instrumental nagim(a) nagim(a) nagim(a)
definite forms
singular masculine feminine neuter
nominative nagi naga nago
genitive nagog(a) nage nagog(a)
dative nagom(u/e) nagoj nagom(u/e)
accusative inanimate
animate 		nagi
nagog(a) 		nagu nago
vocative nagi naga nago
locative nagom(e/u) nagoj nagom(e/u)
instrumental nagim nagom nagim
plural masculine feminine neuter
nominative nagi nage naga
genitive nagih nagih nagih
dative nagim(a) nagim(a) nagim(a)
accusative nage nage naga
vocative nagi nage naga
locative nagim(a) nagim(a) nagim(a)
instrumental nagim(a) nagim(a) nagim(a)

Derived terms

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Slovene

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Etymology

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From Proto-Slavic *nagъ, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *nogʷós (“naked”).

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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nȃg (not comparable)

  1. naked

Inflection

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 The diacritics used in this section of the entry are non-tonal. If you are a native tonal speaker, please help by adding the tonal marks.
Hard
masculine feminine neuter
nom. sing. nág nága nágo
singular
masculine feminine neuter
nominative nág ind
nági def 		nága nágo
genitive nágega náge nágega
dative nágemu nági nágemu
accusative nominativeinan or
genitiveanim 		nágo nágo
locative nágem nági nágem
instrumental nágim nágo nágim
dual
masculine feminine neuter
nominative nága nági nági
genitive nágih nágih nágih
dative nágima nágima nágima
accusative nága nági nági
locative nágih nágih nágih
instrumental nágima nágima nágima
plural
masculine feminine neuter
nominative nági náge nága
genitive nágih nágih nágih
dative nágim nágim nágim
accusative náge náge nága
locative nágih nágih nágih
instrumental nágimi nágimi nágimi

This adjective needs an inflection-table template.

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Further reading

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  • “nag”, in Slovarji Inštituta za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU (in Slovene), 2014–2024

Welsh

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Etymology

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From Proto-Celtic *nekʷe, a combination of Proto-Indo-European *ne (negative particle) and *-kʷe (“and”); compare Latin neque.

Pronunciation

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Particle

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nag

  1. not (in answers and tag questions)

Usage notes

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Used before a vowel, but not when that vowel has resulted from the soft mutation of g. Thus na + gallan becomes na allan, not *nag allan.

Alternative forms

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  • na (used before a consonant)

White Hmong

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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From Proto-Hmong *m-noŋᶜ (“rain”); likely related to Proto-Mien *mbluŋᶜ (“id”) and Proto-Mon-Khmer *pliɲ ~ *[p]liiɲ ~ *[p]liəɲ (“sky”), whence Khmer ភ្លៀង (phliəng, “id”).[1]

Noun

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nag (classifier: kob (for showers), phau (for a period of rain))

  1. rain
Derived terms
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Etymology 2

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This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.
Particularly: “Considered native Hmongic by Ratliff, though no reconstructed proto-form is given.[2] Perhaps a semantic extension of Etymology 1 - that is, with the arrival of rain signifying a different day from the current day? Or perhaps even a fossilization of an older meaning of "sky, day" (compare the Proto-Mon-Khmer term mentioned in Etymology 1)?”

Noun

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nag

  1. used to denote days different from today:
    1. short for nag hmo (“yesterday”)
    2. used in nag kis (“the day after tomorrow”)

References

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  • Heimbach, Ernest E. (1979) White Hmong — English Dictionary‎[1], SEAP Publications, →ISBN, page 135.
  1. ^ Ratliff, Martha (2010) Hmong-Mien language history (Studies in Language Change; 8), Camberra, Australia: Pacific Linguistics, →ISBN, pages 48-9; 277.
  2. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20101031002604/http://wold.livingsources.org/vocabulary/25

Wolof

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Etymology

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Cognate with Fula nagge.

Noun

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nag (definite form nag wi)

  1. cow, cattle

Zhuang

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Etymology

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From Proto-Tai *naːkᴰ (“otter”). Cognate with Thai นาก (nâak), Lao ນາກ (nāk), Tai Dam ꪙꪱꪀ, Tày nạc, Ahom 𑜃𑜀𑜫 (nak).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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nag (Sawndip forms 𤜽 or 纳 or 𭸐 or 𭸢 or 那, 1957–1982 spelling nag)

  1. otter
    Synonym: duznag
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