fag

noun

Pronunciation: /ˈfæɡ/ / [ˈfæɡ] / /ˈfeɪ̯ɡ/

Etymology: Clipping of faggot.

A homosexual man.
“[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.”]”
“In schizophrenics, however, the homosexual outlet is sooner or later ... ideas that strangers call them "cs," "fairy," "woman," "fag," " fruit," etc.). ...”
An effeminate or unusual homosexual man.
An annoying or contemptible person.
“Why did you do that, you fag?”

Etymology: Akin to flag (“droop, tire”). Compare Dutch vaak (“sleepiness”).

To make exhausted, tired out.
To droop; to tire.
“a. 1829, G. Mackenzie, Lives, quoted in 1829, "Fag", entry in The London Encyclopaedia: Or, Universal Dictionary, Volume 9, page 12, Creighton with-held his force 'till the Italian began to fag, and then brought him to the ground.”
(of a younger student) To act as a servant for senior students in many British boarding schools. To be the servant in fagging.
To have (a younger student) act as a servant in this way, in fagging.
“It is everywhere observed that a liberated slave is apt to make a merciless master, and that boys who have been cruelly fagged at school are cruel faggers.”
To work hard, especially on menial chores.
“This state of things should have been to me a paradise of peace, accustomed as I was to a life of ceaseless reprimand and thankless fagging; but, in fact, my racked nerves were now in such a state that no calm could soothe, and no pleasure excite them agreeably.”
“I walked about the streets where the best shops for ladies were, I haunted the Bazaar like an unquiet spirit, I fagged through the Park again and again, long after I was quite knocked up.”