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rag

noun · verb

Simple meaning

A piece of old cloth.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

rag
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈɹæɡ

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. A piece of old cloth, especially one used for cleaning, patching, etc.; a tattered piece of cloth; a shred or tatter.

  2. A small piece of cloth or paper

  3. A ragtime song, dance or piece of music.

  4. A ragged edge in metalworking.

  5. singular or pluralslang

    Sanitary napkins, pads, or other materials used to absorb menstrual discharge.

  6. ukireland

    A society run by university students for the purpose of charitable fundraising.

verb

  1. To scold or tell off; to torment; to banter.

  2. To tease or torment, especially at a university; to bully, to haze.

  3. intransitive

    To become tattered.

  4. Play in ragtime

  5. transitive

    To decorate (a wall, etc.) by applying paint with a rag.

  6. To break (ore) into lumps for sorting.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Moderately Common
Formality
Technical

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A piece of old cloth, especially one used for cleaning, patching, etc.; a tattered piece of cloth; a shred or tatter.

Used this way, rag 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.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Small

rag dollclean rag

Other combinations

red ragrag paperrag rugrag tradewet ragwhite rag

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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.