shag

¹ American  

[shag] / ʃæg /

noun

1. rough, matted hair, wool, or the like.

2. a mass of this.

3. a hairdo in which hair is cut in slightly uneven, overlapping layers downward from the crown, sometimes with the hair at the front and back hairlines left longer or wispier than the rest.

4. a cloth with a nap, as of silk or a heavy or rough woolen fabric.

5. a rug or carpet with a thick, shaggy pile.

6. a coarse tobacco cut into fine shreds.

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verb (used with or without object)

shagged, shagging

1. to make or become rough or shaggy.

shag ² American  

[shag] / ʃæg /

noun

1. a small cormorant, Phalacrocorax aristotelis, of European coasts.

2. any of several small cormorants of the Southern Hemisphere.

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shag ³ American  

[shag] / ʃæg /

verb (used without object)

shagged, shagging

1. to dance a step with a vigorous hopping on each foot.

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noun

1. this dance step.

shag ⁴ American  

[shag] / ʃæg /

verb (used with object)

shagged, shagging

1. to chase or follow after; pursue.

2. to go after and bring back; fetch.

3. Baseball. to retrieve and throw back (fly balls) in batting practice.

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idioms

1. shag ass, to depart, especially hurriedly; get going.

shag ⁵ American  

[shag] / ʃæg /

verb (used with or without object)

1. to have sexual intercourse (with): Sorry, but I don’t shag with just anyone.

   He was caught shagging his friend’s sister.

   Sorry, but I don’t shag with just anyone.

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noun

1. an act or instance of sexual intercourse.

   It’s been a while since I’ve had a shag.

2. a sexual partner, or a person considered as a sexual object.

   I bet she’d be a good shag.

shag ¹ British  

/ ʃæɡ /

noun

1. a matted tangle, esp of hair, wool, etc

2. a napped fabric, usually a rough wool

3. shredded coarse tobacco

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verb

1. (tr) to make shaggy

shag ² British  

/ ʃæɡ /

verb

1. to have sexual intercourse with (a person)

2. to exhaust; tire

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noun

1. an act of sexual intercourse

shag ³ British  

/ ʃæɡ /

noun

1. a cormorant, esp the green cormorant ( Phalacrocorax aristotelis )

2. slang abandoned and alone

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Usage

What else does shag mean? Shag means "to have sex" with someone in British slang.

Other Word Forms

• shaglike
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of shag¹

First recorded before 1050; Old English sceacga “(wooly) hair” (not recorded in Middle English ); cognate with Old Norse skegg “beard”; akin to shaw

Origin of shag²

First recorded before 1560–70; perhaps special use of shag ¹, applied first to bird's crest

Origin of shag³

First recorded in 1350–1400; perhaps variant of shog

Origin of shag⁴

First recorded in 1930–35; origin uncertain; see shack ²

Origin of shag⁵

First recorded in 1780–90; origin unknown

Example Sentences

Now Britons are growing exasperated with a decorator whose tastes run to the intellectual equivalent of avocado-colored appliances and garish shag carpeting.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 13, 2025

Upstairs in Grossman’s office, which is now her architecture studio, she also removed the shag carpeting and replaced it with colorful cork flooring designed to feel like “fallen, random leaves,” she says.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 11, 2025

An era remembered now, if at all, for leisure suits, burnt-orange shag carpeting and muttonchop sideburns, it marked the passage from progress to reaction.

From Salon • Aug. 9, 2025

There is good news for some of the seabirds that breed in the UK, with the shag moving from the red list to the amber and the black guillemot from the amber to the green.

From BBC • Sep. 2, 2024

We scoured the entire lower level of the house, from the dining room to a narrow, dirty kitchen to a living room with the ugliest orange shag carpet I’d ever seen in my life.

From "Made You Up" by Francesca Zappia

Related Words

• drive
• drive away
• expel
• follow
• go after
• hound
• hunt
• run down
• rush
• tear
• track
• trail