or ballyrag, verb. (colloquial).—To revile; to abuse; to scold in vulgar or obscene language; also to swindle by means of intimidation: also BALLYRAGGING.

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  1760.  T. WARTON, The Oxford Newsman’s Verses.

          On Minden’s plains, ye meek Mounseers!
Remember Kingsley’s grenadiers.
You vainly thought to BALLARAG us
With your fine squadron off Cape Lagos.

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  1861.  LEVER, One of Them, 36. He BULLYRAGGED me.

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  1863.  H. KINGSLEY, Austin Elliot, xviii. It would be a good thing for she … if she could bully Miss Eleanor into marrying Captain Hertford, and then that the pair on ’em should have the bullying and BALLY-RAGGING of nine thousand a year.

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  1876.  S. L. CLEMENS (‘Mark Twain’), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, xiii. 118. I don’t want nothing better’n this. I don’t ever get enough to eat, gen’ally—and here they can’t come and pick at a feller and BULLYRAG him so.

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  1880.  MRS. PARR, Adam and Eve, xxi., 292. There’ll be more set to the score o’ my coaxin’ than ever ‘all be to Adam’s BULLY-RAGGING.’

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  1880.  GREENWOOD, Maids in Waiting (in Odd People in Odd Places), 143. You should have heard the BULLYRAGGING I got, ma’am, from the mistress and the master as well, and I was turned out in the shameful way I’ve already explained to you, for doing what was no wrong at all, but only what me good-nature tempted me to.

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  1882.  Daily Telegraph, Oct. 19, 3, 1. And you should have heard the BULLY-RAGGING I got, ma’am, from the mistress and the master as well.

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  1884.  PAYN, The Talk of the Town, v. He had never been BALLY-RAGGED in his own house for ‘nothing’—except by his wife—before.

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