or crag, subs. (old).—The neck; COLQUARRON (q.v.): as verb. = (1) to hang; and (2) to throttle. Hence SCRAGGING = an execution: SCRAG-BOY = the hangman; SCRAGGING-POST (SCRAG-SQUEEZER or SCRAG) = the gallows; SCRAGG-’EM FAIR = a public execution (GROSE, PARKER, VAUX).
d. 1555. LYNDSAY, Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis [E.E.T.S., 4042]. Allace! maister, ye hurt my CRAG.
1579. SPENSER, The Shepheardes Calender, Feb., 89.
| Thy Ewes that woont to haue blowen bags, | |
| Like wailefull widdowes hangen their CRAGS. |
1653. MIDDLETON, The Changeling, i. 2. The devil put the rope about her CRAG.
1780. R. TOMLINSON, A Slang Pastoral, st. x. What kiddy’s so rum as to get himself SCRAGG’D.
c. 1787. Kilmainham Minit [Ireland Sixty Years Ago, 88].
| But if dat de slang you run sly, | |
| De SCRAG-BOY may yet be outwitted, | |
| And I scout again on de lay. |
1820. London Magazine, I. 26. The SCRAGGING-POST must have been his fate.
1827. BULWER-LYTTON, Pelham, lxxxiii. If he pikes we shall all be SCRAGGED.
1829. The Lag’s Lament [Vidocq’s Memoirs, iii. 169].
| Snitch on the gang, that’ll be the best vay | |
| To save your SCRAG. |
1834. W. H. AINSWORTH, Rookwood, v. i. I wish I was as certain of my reward as that Turpin will eventually figure at the SCRAGGING-POST.
1836. H. M. MILNER, Turpin’s Ride to York, i. 3. I shall never come to the SCRAGGING-POST, unless you turn topsman.
1837. R. H. BARHAM, The Ingoldsby Legends, ‘The Babes in the Wood.’
| So out with your whinger at once, | |
| And SCRAG Jane, while I spiflicate Johnny! |
1838. DICKENS, Oliver Twist, xviii. Indicating, by a lively pantomimic representation, that SCRAGGING and hanging were one and the same thing.
1843. W. T. MONCRIEFF, The Scamps of London, ii. 3. He was three times lagged, and werry near SCRAGGED.
1883. Daily Telegraph, 7 Aug., 6, 2. His waistcoat was of the tight up round the SCRAG pattern.
1887. W. E. HENLEY, Villon’s Straight Tip to all Cross Coves.
| Until the squeezer nips your SCRAG, | |
| Booze and the blowens cop the lot. |
1893. MILLIKEN, ’Arry Ballads, 61, ‘On Law and Order.’ But a Crusher’s ’ard knuckles a crunching yer SCRAG?
1900. KIPLING, Stalky & Co., 46. Don’t drop oil over my ‘Fors,’ or I’ll SCRAG you.
2. (colloquial).—A raw-bones. Hence SCRAGGY = lean; thin (GROSE).
3. (Shrewsbury School).—See quot.
1881. PASCOE, ed. Everyday Life in Our Public Schools, 159. The highest mark is twenty with a cross … and so on down to a huge ‘duck’s egg’ and a rent across the paper, entitled a ‘SCRAG.’
TO SCRAG A LAY, verb. phr. (old).—‘To steal clothes put on a hedge to dry’ (TUFTS); TO GO SNOWY-HUNTING (q.v.).
