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lag - 18 dictionary results

lag

1  [lag] verb, lagged, lag⋅ging, noun
Use lag in a Sentence
–verb (used without object)
1. to fail to maintain a desired pace or to keep up; fall or stay behind: After five minutes of hard running, some of them began to lag.
2. to move or develop slowly, as toward a goal or objective, or in relation to an associated factor (often fol. by behind): to lag behind in production.
3. to delay or fail in reaching full development: The factory lags regularly in making its quota.
4. to hang back; linger; delay: The old friends lagged because they wanted to talk some more.
5. to decrease, wane, or flag gradually, as in intensity: Interest lagged as the meeting went on.
6. Marbles. to throw one's shooting marble toward a line (lag line) on the ground in order to decide on the order of play.
7. Billiards, Pool. string (def. 17b).
–verb (used with object)
8. to fail to keep up with: The industry still lags the national economy.
9. Obsolete. to cause to lag.
–noun
10. a lagging or falling behind; retardation.
11. a person who lags behind, is the last to arrive, etc.
12. an interval or lapse of time: There was a developmental lag in the diffusion of ideas.
13. Mechanics. the amount of retardation of some motion.
14. Electricity. the retardation of one alternating quantity, as current, with respect to another related alternating quantity, as voltage, often expressed in degrees.
15. Marbles, Billiards. the act of lagging.
Origin:
1505–15; < Scand: cf. Norw lagga to go slowly

Synonyms:
1. loiter, linger. 10. slowing, slowdown.

Antonyms:
1. hasten.

lag

2  [lag] verb, lagged, lag⋅ging, noun Chiefly British Slang.
–verb (used with object)
1. to send to penal servitude; imprison.
–noun
2. a convict or ex-convict.
3. a period or term of penal servitude; prison sentence.
Origin:
1565–75; orig. uncert.

lag

3  [lag] noun, verb, lagged, lag⋅ging.
–noun
1. one of the staves or strips that form the periphery of a wooden drum, the casing of a steam cylinder, or the like.
2. Masonry. a crosspiece between ribs in a centering.
–verb (used with object)
3. to line or cover (an excavation) with lagging.
4. to cover with insulation, as a steam boiler, to prevent radiation of heat.
Origin:
1665–75; < Scand; cf. Sw lagg stave
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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lag 1   (lāg)   
v.   lagged, lag·ging, lags

v.   intr.
  1. To fail to keep up a pace; straggle.
  2. To proceed or develop with comparative slowness: The electric current lags behind the voltage.
  3. To fail, weaken, or slacken gradually; flag.
  4. Games To determine the order of play in billiards by successively hitting the cue ball against the end rail, the ball rebounding closest to the head rail indicating the player to shoot first.
v.   tr.
  1. To cause to hang back or fall behind.
  2. To shoot, throw, or pitch (a coin, for example) at a mark.
n.  
  1. The act, process, or condition of lagging.
  2. One that lags.
  3. A condition of slowness or retardation.
    1. The extent or duration of lagging: "He wondered darkly at how great a lag there was between his thinking and his actions" (Thomas Wolfe).
    2. An interval between events or phenomena considered together.

[From earlier lag, last person, from Middle English lag-, last (in lagmon, last man), perhaps of Scandinavian origin.]
lag'ger n.
lag 2   (lāg)   
n.  
  1. A barrel stave.
  2. A strip, as of wood, that forms a part of the covering for a cylindrical object.
tr.v.   lagged, lag·ging, lags
To furnish or cover with lags.

[Probably of Scandinavian origin; akin to Swedish lagg; see leu- in Indo-European roots.]
lag 3   (lāg)   
tr.v.   lagged, lag·ging, lags
  1. To arrest.
  2. To send to prison.
n.  
  1. A convict.
  2. An ex-convict.

[Origin unknown.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Lag

Lag\, a. [Of Celtic origin: cf. Gael. & Ir. lagweak, feeble, faint, W. llag, llac, slack, loose, remiss, sluggish; prob. akin to E. lax, languid.]

1. Coming tardily after or behind; slow; tardy. [Obs.]

Came too lag to see him buried. --Shak.

2. Last; long-delayed; -- obsolete, except in the phrase lag end. "The lag end of my life." --Shak.

3. Last made; hence, made of refuse; inferior. [Obs.] "Lag souls." --Dryden.

Lag

Lag\, n. 1. One who lags; that which comes in last. [Obs.] "The lag of all the flock." --Pope.

2. The fag-end; the rump; hence, the lowest class.

The common lag of people. --Shak.

3. The amount of retardation of anything, as of a valve in a steam engine, in opening or closing.

4. A stave of a cask, drum, etc.; especially (Mach.), one of the narrow boards or staves forming the covering of a cylindrical object, as a boiler, or the cylinder of a carding machine or a steam engine.

5. (Zo["o]l.) See Graylag.

Lag of the tide, the interval by which the time of high water falls behind the mean time, in the first and third quarters of the moon; -- opposed to priming of the tide, or the acceleration of the time of high water, in the second and fourth quarters; depending on the relative positions of the sun and moon.

Lag screw, an iron bolt with a square head, a sharp-edged thread, and a sharp point, adapted for screwing into wood; a screw for fastening lags.

Lag

Lag\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Lagged; p. pr. & vb. n. Lagging.] To walk or more slowly; to stay or fall behind; to linger or loiter. "I shall not lag behind." --Milton.

Syn: To loiter; linger; saunter; delay; be tardy.

Lag

Lag\, v. t. 1. To cause to lag; to slacken. [Obs.] "To lag his flight." --Heywood.

2. (Mach.) To cover, as the cylinder of a steam engine, with lags. See Lag, n., 4.

Lag

Lag\, n. One transported for a crime. [Slang, Eng.]

Lag

Lag\, v. t. To transport for crime. [Slang, Eng.]

She lags us if we poach. --De Quincey.

Lag

Lag\, n. The failing behind or retardation of one phenomenon with respect to another to which it is closely related; as, the lag of magnetization compared with the magnetizing force (hysteresis); the lag of the current in an alternating circuit behind the impressed electro-motive force which produced it.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Language Translation for : lag
Spanish: retrasarse, quedarse atrás,
German: zurückbleiben,
Japanese: 遅れる
More Translations »

lag

n. [MUD, IRC; very common] When used without qualification this is synomous with netlag. Curiously, people will often complain "I'm really lagged" when in fact it is their server or network connection that is lagging.
Jargon File 4.2.0
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lag  (v.)
"fail to keep pace," 1530, from earlier adj. meaning "last" (1514), e.g. lag-mon "last man," possibly from a Scand. source (cf. Norw. lagga "go slowly"), or some dialectal version of last, lack, or delay. First record of lag time is from 1956. Laggard is from 1702.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Main Entry: 1lag
Pronunciation: 'lag
Function: verb
Inflected Forms: lagged; lag·ging
intransitive senses
1 : to move, function, or develop with comparative slowness lagged in perceptual development>
2 : to become retarded in attaining maximum valuelag transitive senses
: to lag behind lags the voltage>

Main Entry: 2lag
Function: noun
1 : the act or the condition of lagging
2 : comparative slowness or retardation (as in growth ordevelopment)
3 a : a space of time especially between related events or phenomena —see LAG PHASE b : the time between the application of a stimulus and the occurrence of the response it causes
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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lag
netlag

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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