wag

CEFRB2

/wæɡ/

verb · noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    verb

    To move from side to side repeatedly.

  2. 02

    noun

    A humorous person who makes jokes.

Examples

  • Dogs wag their tails and cats swish theirs.

  • Tom used to wag school a lot when he was a kid.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
5

Deep Dive

verb

Extra meanings

  1. To go; to proceed; to move; to progress.

  2. To play truant from school.

  3. To swing from side to side, as an animal's tail, or someone's head to express disagreement or disbelief.

More examples

In context

  • She's a real gossip: her tongue is always wagging.

  • The wag of my dog's tail expresses happiness.

  • The tail wagged.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The dog began to blank its tail happily when its owner came home.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

verb

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