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• tea bag
  tea bag

  noun

  a container of thin paper or cloth holding a measured amount of tea leaves for making an individual serving of tea.
• tea-bag
  tea-bag

  verb (used with object)

  to place one's scrotum in the mouth of (one's sexual partner).

tea bag

¹ American  

noun

tea bags plural

1. a container of thin paper or cloth holding a measured amount of tea leaves for making an individual serving of tea.

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tea-bag ² American  

[tee-bag] / ˈtiˌbæg /

verb (used with object)

Slang.

tea-bagged, tea-bagging

1. to place one's scrotum in the mouth of (one's sexual partner).

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tea bag British  

noun

1. a small bag of paper or cloth containing tea leaves, infused in boiling water to make tea

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Usage

What does tea-bag mean? Tea-bagging is the act of placing one's testicles in the mouth of another person, often repeatedly, raising and lowering it like a person dipping a tea bag. Content warning: the following sections include further references to sexual content, which is involved in the history and use of the slang term.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• tea bags
  plural

Etymology

Origin of tea bag¹

First recorded in 1900–05

Origin of tea-bag²

From its resemblance to dipping a tea bag in a cup of hot water

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

tea bag tea-bag

The service said in some cases parents had been going without food so their children could eat, or were making items like one tea bag last a week.

From BBC ● May 14, 2025

Jurado swirled around a Rooibos tea bag with a tag read, “Your Actions Prove Your Greatness.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 14, 2024

I DO press the tea bag to extract more "oomph" from it and this is a big no-no for some who believe it will make your tea bitter.

From Salon ● Aug. 1, 2024

Her second key tip is to dunk your tea bag up and down.

From New York Times ● Jan. 24, 2024

She always saved the tea bag from his morning tea to use it again in the afternoon.

From "Tiger Boy" by Mitali Perkins

Instead she moved to London to become a writer, working a series of “really awful” day jobs, including one in a tea-bag factory.

From New York Times ● Apr. 2, 2023

The idea for the tea-bag protest probably made its way to his in box, indirectly, from a message board attached to the libertarian financial-news blog Market Ticker.

From Salon ● May 14, 2010

Then the hero discovers, courtesy of McDowall's tea-bag reading, that he is pregnant.

From Time Magazine Archive

“Yes, mum,” said the man obediently; and as it was placed by the fire, Aunt Georgie plunged her tea-bag in, and held it beneath the boiling water with a piece of stick.

From The Dingo Boys The Squatters of Wallaby Range by Stacey, W. S. (Walter S.)

He'd get the sugar first, and then, if it looked good enough, the flour-bag would come out, then the tea-bag.

From Children of the Bush by Lawson, Henry