Bag sb.

Forms: 3–7 bagge, 6–7 bagg, 4– bag. [Early ME. bagge: cf. ON. baggi ‘bag, pack, bundle’ (not elsewhere in Teutonic); also OF. bague, Pr. bagua baggage, med.L. baga chest, sack. The Eng. was possibly from the ON.; but the source of this, as well as of the Romanic words, is unknown; the Celtic derivation suggested by Diez is not tenable: Gaelic bag is from English. Of connection with Teutonic *balgi-z, Goth. balgs, OE. bęlʓ, bælʓ, bæliʓ, whence BELLY, BELLOWS, and the cogn. Celtic bolg, balg, there is no evidence.]

  I.  General sense.

  1.  A receptacle made of some flexible material closed in on all sides except at the top (where also it generally can be closed); a pouch, a small sack.

a. 1230.  Ancr. R., 168. Hit is beggares rihte uorte beren bagge on bac; & burgeises for to beren purses. Ibid. Trusseaus, & purses, baggen, & packes.

1362.  Langl., P. Pl., A. Prol. 41. Til heor Bagges and heore Balies weren [bratful] I-crommet.

c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 21. Bagge, or poke: Sacculus.

1513.  Bk. Keruynge, in Babees Bk., 267. Haue fyue or syxe bagges for your ypocras to renne in, & … basyns to stande vnder your bagges.

1535.  Coverdale, 1 Sam. xvii. 40. And put them in the shepardes bagge which he had.

1622.  R. Hawkins, Voy. S. Sea (1847), 80. Any man that putteth himself into the enemies port, had need of Argus eyes, and the wind in a bagge.

1626.  Bacon, Sylva, § 6. Passing it through a woolen bagg.

1653.  Walton, Angler, 138. He would usually take three or four worms out of his bag.

1662.  Fuller, Worthies (1811), II. 579 (D.). Our English by-word to express such betwixt whom there is apparent odds of strength, ‘He is able to put him up in a Bagge.’

1864.  Tennyson, En. Ard., 63. The younger people … with bag and basket … went nutting.

  b.  Green bag, blue bag: a barrister’s brief-bag.

1712.  Arbuthnot, John Bull (1733), 51. You will carry a green Bag yourself, rather than we shall make an end of our Law-Suit.

1788.  in G. Rose, Diaries (1860), I. 96. Mr. Pitt had resolved … ‘to take his blue bag, and return to the bar.’

  2.  With various substantives defining its purpose, the two words being hyphened, as air-, bread-, cloak-, game-, mail-, money-, post-, soot-, travelling-. See also CARPET-BAG, NOSE-BAG, WIND-BAG.

1711.  Addison, Spect., No. 3, ¶ 8. The Hill of Mony Bags, and the Heaps of Mony.

1711.  Steele, ibid., No. 132, ¶ 1. His Cloke-bag was fixed in the Seat of the Coach.

1716.  in Lond. Gaz., No. 5411/4. Pistol-Bags of grey Cloth.

1782.  A. Monro, Compar. Anat., 60. The construction and dilatation of the air-bag.

1814.  Moore, Post Bag, 284. The honour and delight of first ransacking the Post Bag.

1836.  Marryat, Midsh. Easy, xii. There’s nothing about bread bags in the articles of war, sir.

1837.  Carlyle, Fr. Rev., III. IV. v. 234. Our ‘redoubts of cotton-bags’ are taken.

1862.  F. Griffiths, Artill. Man., 220. Three feeds in the corn-bag.

1863.  Kingsley, Water-Bab., i. 18. Not if it’s in the bottom of the soot-bag.

1883.  Fisheries Exhib. Catal., 217. Travelling-bags … steamer bags, tourists’ bags, railroad bags, pic-nic bags, dress-suit bags, hand bags, shopping bags, brief bags.

  II.  Specific uses.

  3.  = Money-bag, purse.

1393.  Gower, Conf., II. 284. Be so the bagge and he [the avarous] accorden, Him reccheth nought what men recorden Of him.

1530.  Palsgr., 196/2. Bagge, a purse.

1572.  Lament. Lady Scot., in Scot. Poems 16th C. (1801), II. 249. Gif sum sect knaw that they haue geir or baggs.

1596.  Bp. Barlow, Three Serm., i. 120. Laying the payment … vpon their parentes bagges.

1611.  Bible, John xii. 6. Because he was a thief, and had the bag.

1633.  Bp. Hall, Hard Texts, 230. A wealthy foole doth in vain hope by all his bagges to purchase wisedome.

1765.  Tucker, Lt. Nat., II. 519. The covetous man likes to count over his bags.

  † 4.  poet. in pl. Bagpipes. Obs. Cf. pipes.

c. 1275.  Mapes, Body & Soul, 50. This pipers that this bagges blewen.

1790.  Scots Songs, II. 36. Then to his bags he flew wi’ speed, About the drone he twisted.

  5.  A small silken pouch to contain the back-hair of a wig; cf. BAG-WIG.

1702.  Lond. Gaz., No. 3864/4. A short man … wears a Peruke ty’d up in a Bag.

1793.  T. Jefferson, Writ. (1830), IV. 487. It was understood … that gentlemen should be dressed in bags.

1806.  A. Duncan, Nelson’s Fun., 13. Two attendants … in full mourning dress, with black gowns, swords, and bags.

1865.  Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., II. VI. vii. 213. He cannot … change the graceful French bag into the strict Prussian queue in a moment.

  6.  A measure of quantity for produce, varying according to the nature of the commodity.

1679.  Bedloe, Popish Plot, 15. Removing some Baggs of Hopps.

1751.  Chambers, Cycl., s.v., A bag of almonds … is about 3 hundred weight.

1845.  Morn. Chron., 22 Nov., 5/2. Potatoes … There are three bushels to the bag.

  7.  = Mail-bag, post-bag; mail.

1702.  Lond. Gaz., No. 3814/4. Write by Ormskirk Bag.

1781.  Cowper, Lett., 23 May. The boy has lost the bag in which your letter must have been.

1814.  Moore, Post Bag, 283. The Bag from which the following Letters are selected.

  † 8.  Med. A kind of poultice. Obs.

1753.  Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Bag … a kind of fomentation … of proper ingredients, inclosed in a bag.

  9.  Sporting. = Game-bag; hence, the contents of a game-bag, the quantity of fish or game however large (embracing e.g., elephants and buffaloes) killed at one time; the produce of a hunting, fishing or shooting expedition.

1486.  Bk. St. Albans, B iij. Ye most take a partrich in yowre bagge.

1530.  Palsgr., 196/2. A fauconner’s bagge, gibissière.

1863.  Speke, Discov. Nile, 36. ‘The bags’ we made counted two brindled gnu, four water-boc, one pallah-boc, and one pig.

1865.  Ruskin, Sesame, i. 84. The chance of a brace or two of game less in your own bag in a day’s shooting.

1867.  F. Francis, Angling, i. (1880), 29. The artist in roach-fishing alone will make a fair bag on an indifferent day.

  fig.  1881.  Sir W. Harcourt, Sp. Glasgow, 26 Oct. Lord Salisbury and Sir S. Northcote … had a rattling day at Newcastle and Beverley—but I ask myself what is their bag?

  III.  Transferred senses; bag-like objects.

  10.  An udder, a dug.

1579.  Spenser, Sheph. Cal., Feb., 81. Thy Ewes, that wont to haue blowen bags.

1642.  H. More, Pre-exist. Soul, xlvii. (D.). Those wicked Hags … whose writhled bags Foul fiends oft suck.

1697.  Dryden, Virg. Eclog., ix. 41. So may thy Cows their burden’d Bags distend.

1784.  J. Twamley, Dairying Exempl., 97. Cows with good bags.

1856.  Emerson, Eng. Traits, v. 99. The cow is sacrificed to her bag, the ox to his surloin.

  11.  A sac (in the body of animal) containing honey, poison, etc. (Chiefly fig.)

1529.  Latimer, Serm. (1844), 20. Yet there may remain a bag of rusty malice, 20 years old, in thy neighbour’s bosom.

1590.  Shaks., Mid. N., III. i. 171. The honie-bags steale from the humble Bees.

1682.  Dryden, Medal (1709), 16 (J.).

1818.  Byron, Juan, I. ccxiv. Hived in our bosoms like the bag o’ the bee.

1837.  Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II. I. iv. 33. While sting and poison-bag were left.

  12.  A baggy place, a fold.

1572.  Mascal, Govt. Cattle (1627), 160. Bagge, is in the weekes of the horse mouth.

  13.  pl. The stomach, entrails. (North dial. and Sc.)

  14.  Coal-Min. A cavity filled with gas or water.

a. 1733.  North, Life Guilford (1808), I. 286 (D.). An account of a bag of water, which was broke in his greatest colliery.

1851.  Coal. tr. Terms Northumbld. & Durh., Bag of Gas, a cavity found occasionally in fiery seams of coal, containing highly condensed gas.

  15.  Naut. ‘Bag of the Head-rails, the lowest part … or that part which forms the sweep of the rail.’ Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., 1867.

  16.  fig. Clothes that hang loosely about the wearer; (vulgarly) trousers.

1860.  Smiles, Self-Help, vii. 180. He … only appears stout because he puts himself into those bags (trousers).

  IV.  Phrases.

  17.  Bag of bones: an emaciated living being. The whole bag of tricks: every expedient, everything (in allusion to the fable of ‘the Fox and the Cat’). In the bottom of the bag: remaining as a last resource or expedient.

1659.  Reynolds, in Burton, Diary (1828), IV. 447. If this be done, which is in the bottom of the bag, and must be done, we shall … be able to buoy up our reputation.

1838.  Dickens, O. Twist, iv. 64. There, get down stairs, little bag o’ bones.

1848.  Kingsley, Saint’s Trag., IV. iii. 204. I am almost ashamed to punish A bag of skin and bones.

  18.  † To turn to bag and wallet: to become a beggar. To give (one) the bag to hold: to engage any one while taking the opportunity to slip away, to leave in the lurch. To give the bag to: to leave without warning (obs.); also in mod. dial., to dismiss (a servant, etc.) [Cf. To give the SACK.] To let the cat out of the bag: to disclose the secret. To empty the bag (Fr. vider le sac): to tell the whole story, finish the discussion.

1592.  Greene, Upst. Courtier, in Harl. Misc. (Malh.), II. 236. To giue your masters the bagge.

1599.  Hakluyt, Voy., II. I. 161. The turning to bag and wallet of the infinite number of the poore people imploied in clothing.

1607.  Dekker & Webster, Westw. Hoe, IV. ii. Wks. 1873, II. 340. I fear our oares haue giuen us the bag.

1647.  Speedy, Hue & Crie, 1. He being sometime an Apprentice on London bridge … gave his Master the bag.

1760.  Lond. Mag., XXIX. 224. We could have wished that the author … had not let the cat out of the bag.

1793.  T. Jefferson, Writ. (1859), IV. 7. She will leave Spain the bag to hold.

1823.  Scott, Peveril, vii. She gave me the bag to hold, and was smuggling in a corner with a rich old Puritan.

  19.  Bag and baggage: orig. a military phrase denoting all the property of an army collectively, and of the soldiers individually; hence the phrase, originally said to the credit of an army or general, to march out (with) bag and baggage (= Fr. vie et bagues sauves), i.e., with all belongings saved, without surrender of anything; to make an honorable retreat. Now used depreciatively to express the absolute character of any one’s departure: to clear out completely, ‘and a good riddance too!’ The bag and baggage policy: see last two quots.

[1422.  Rymer, Fœdera, X. 206/2. (De salvo conductu) Cum armaturis … bonis … bogeis, baggagiis.]

1525.  Ld. Berners, Froiss., II. xxiii. 59. We haue with vs all our bagges and baggages … that we haue wonne … by armes. Ibid., I. cccxx. 497. So all the men of warre within departed with bag and baggage.

1544.  Chron. Grey Friars (1852), 47. The kynge gave them alle there lyffes and pardynd them to goo with bagge and bagges.

1580.  North, Plutarch (1676), 922. To go safely with bag and baggage, never to return.

1600.  Shaks., A. Y. L., III. ii. 170. Let vs make an honorable retreit, though not with bagge and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.

c. 1620.  Middleton, Witch (1778), 35. To kick this fellow … And send him downe stayres with his bag and baggage.

1667.  Lond. Gaz., No. 163/2. Upon honorable conditions, marching off with Bag and Baggage, Drums beating, Colors flying.

1741.  Richardson, Pamela, II. 34. Bag and Baggage, said she, I’m glad you’re going.

1870.  Spurgeon, Treas. Dav., Ps. cxix. 115. The king sent them packing bag and baggage.

1876.  Gladstone, Bulgarian Horrors, 61. The Turks … their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs … their Kaimakams and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province they have desolated and profaned.

1882.  Daily News, 26 May, 5/6. Cites the famous Bulgarian pamphlet, precognising the bag-and-baggage policy as evidence that Mr. Gladstone will never be a party to restoring Turkish authority.

  V.  Comb. and Attrib.

  1.  General relations: a. attrib., as bag-fox; b. objective, as bag-bearer, -bearing, -maker, -making; c. similative and parasynthetic, as bag-bedded, -cheeked, -like, -shaped.

1598.  Rowlands, Betraying of Christ, 24. Apostle once, increasing Christ’s eleuen, Bagbearer, to the charge of purse assign’d.

1853.  Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxix. (1856), 254. A night upon the ice, tented and bag-bedded.

1839.  Carlyle, Chartism, viii. 166. A plain, bag-cheeked … Lancashire Man.

1849.  Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., IV. 1020/2. That skinny and baglike part of its mouth which is under the jaw.

1870.  Pall Mall Gaz., 15 Aug., 12/1. Those flat ones [moors], really much easier walking, but on which bagmaking becomes sheer business, and you have a tame monotony of sport.

1836.  Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., II. 969/1. A dilated bag-shaped crop.

  2.  Special combinations: Bag-fox, a fox brought alive in a bag to be turned out before the hounds; † bag-granado, a grenade enclosed in a bag; bag-muff, a muff containing a pouch which serves as a bag; bag-net, a bag-shaped net for catching fish, insects, etc.; bag-rod, a fishing rod that can be taken to pieces and carried in a case; bag-sleeve, a sleeve tight at the wrist and baggy above; bag-wolf (cf. bag-fox).

1741.  Compl. Fam.-Piece, II. i. 296. Sometimes he is reserved alive, and hunted another Day, which is called a *Bag-Fox.

1814.  C. Mathews, Mem., II. 319. They turned out a *bag-fox and we had a good run of three miles.

1638–48.  G. Daniel, Eclog., v. 238. These *Bag-Granadoes flie Still to Advantage Garrisons’ Revolt.

1884.  Girl’s Own P., 29 Nov., 138/2. The useful *bag muff appears in … great varieties.

1777.  Travis, in Pennant, Zool., IV. 12. Our fishermen use a *bag-net fixed to an iron hoop.

1848.  Hardy, in Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, II. vi. 321. A bag-net, which being quickly drawn over the turnips, secured the beetles while leaping off the plants.

1787.  Best, Angling, 11. These *bag-rods … go up in a small compass.

1844.  R. Hart, Antiq. Norfolk, xxii. 69. A sort of *bag-sleeve, tight at the wrist.

1862.  M. Napier, Life Ld. Dundee, II. 151. No more *bag-wolves to afford such sport.