drag
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Resistance of a fluid to something moving through it.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dragIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdɹæɡ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
physicsuncountable
Resistance of a fluid to something moving through it.
countable
A device dragged along the bottom of a body of water in search of something, e.g. a dead body, or in fishing.
by analogy with above
Any force acting in opposition to the motion of an object.
The act of dragging (pulling with force)
“The drag up the hill exhausted him.”
countable
The scent-path left by dragging a fox, or some other substance such as aniseed, for training hounds to follow scents.
A heavy harrow for breaking up ground.
verb
transitive
To pull along a surface or through a medium, sometimes with difficulty.
Draw slowly or heavily
To proceed heavily, laboriously, or slowly; to advance with weary effort; to go on lingeringly.
To act or proceed slowly or without enthusiasm; to be reluctant.
To draw along (something burdensome); hence, to pass in pain or with difficulty.
To search for something, as a lost object or body, by dragging something along the bottom of a body of water.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A device dragged along the bottom of a body of water in search of something, e.g. a dead body, or in fishing.
Used this way, drag is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use drag
- “The drag up the hill exhausted him.”noun
- “Drag this icon to the lower right hand corner of the screen.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Last unnecessarily long.
Speak unfavorably about.
Mention something unpleasant from the past.
Force into some kind of situation, condition, or course of action.
The ratio of the drag on a body moving through air to the product of the velocity and the surface area of the body.
Hit a ball in such a way so as to make it go a short distance.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.