different between clag vs blag

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /klæ?/
• Rhymes: -æ?

Noun

clag (uncountable)

1. A glue or paste made from starch.
2. Low cloud, fog or smog.
   • 2001, Colin Castle, Lucky Alex: The Career of Group Captain A.M. Jardine Afc, CD, Seaman and Airman

     This programme included practice interceptions, simulator training, day flying, night flying, clag flying -- in addition to […] [a footnote states that clag flying was Air Force slang for foul weather flying.]

   • 2004, David A. Barr, One Lucky Canuck: An Autobiography

     We went along in the clag for what seemed like an eternity [a footnote defines clag as low cloud cover]

3. (railway slang) Unburned carbon (smoke) from a steam or diesel locomotive, or multiple unit.
4. (motor racing slang) Bits of rubber which are shed from tires during a race and collect off the racing line, especially on the outside of corners (c.f marbles).

   He ran wide in the corner, hit the clag and spun off.

Derived terms

• claggy

Verb

clag (third-person singular simple present clags, present participle clagging, simple past and past participle clagged)

1. (obsolete) To encumber
   • c1620:Thomas Heywood, Thomas Heywood's Art of Love: The First Complete English Translation of Ovid's Ars Amatoria

     As when the orchard boughes are clag'd with fruite

   • 1725: Edward Taylor, Preparatory Meditations

     Can such draw to me/My stund affections all with Cinders clag'd

2. To stick, like boots in mud
   • 1999: "A queen of a Santee kitchen, pre-war", quoted by Mary Alston Read Simms in the Introduction to Rice Planter and Sportsman: The Recollections of J. Motte Alston, 1821-1909

     Wash the rice well in two waters, if you don't wash 'em, 'e will clag [clag means get sticky] and put 'em in a pot of well-salted boiling water.

Anagrams

• GLAC

Manx

Etymology

From Old Irish cloc.

Noun

clag m (genitive singular cluig, plural cluig)

1. bell

Derived terms

• shamyr chluig, thie cluig (“belfry”)

Mutation

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Old Irish cloc.

Noun

clag m (genitive singular cluig, plural cluig)

1. bell

Derived terms

• beum-cluig

Mutation

English

Etymology 1

Perhaps from French blague (“joke, tall story”), blaguer (“to joke”), from Old Occitan blagar (“to chat”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /blæ?/
• Rhymes: -æ?

Verb

blag (third-person singular simple present blags, present participle blagging, simple past and past participle blagged)

1. (Britain, informal, transitive) To obtain (something) for free, particularly by guile or persuasion.

   Synonyms: obtain, sponge; see also Thesaurus:scrounge

2. (Britain, informal, specifically) To obtain confidential information by impersonation or other deception.

   Synonym: pretext

3. (Polari) To pick up someone.
4. (Britain, informal, 1960s) To inveigle by persuasion.

5. (Britain, informal, 1940s) To deceive; to perpetrate a hoax on.

Translations

Noun

blag (plural blags)

1. (Britain, informal) A means of obtaining something by trick or deception.

2. (Britain criminal slang) An armed robbery.
   • 2014, Echo Freer, Diamond Geezers

     I know your old man's keen for you to learn the ropes an' all that, but let's not forget who's running this blag, shall we?

Adjective

blag (comparative more blag, superlative most blag)

1. (Britain, informal) Fake, not genuine.

   Synonym: fake

Derived terms

• blagger

Translations

Etymology 2

First attested in xkcd: "Mispronouncing".

Noun

blag (plural blags)

1. (humorous) Misspelling of blog. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Etymology 3

Tagalog blag

Interjection

blag

1. (Philippines) An onomatopoeia for the sound of a falling strike. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Further reading

• blag at The Septic's Companion: A British Slang Dictionary

References

Anagrams

• Glab

Antillean Creole

Etymology

From French blague.

Noun

blag

1. joke

German Low German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bl??x/, /bl??x/ (more on the merger of monophthongal A and O)

Adjective

blag

1. Alternative spelling of blaag

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *bolg?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /blâ??/

Adjective

bl?g (definite bl?g?, comparative bl?ž?, Cyrillic spelling ?????)

1. mild, gentle, soft
2. (intensifier, colloquial) any, damn, faintest

Declension

Related terms

• blagost

Derived terms

Further reading

• “blag” in Hrvatski jezi?ni portal

Slovene

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *bolg?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /blá?k/

Adjective

bl?g (comparative blážji or bl?žji, superlative n?jblážji or n?jbl?žji)

1. mild, gentle, soft

Further reading

• “blag”, in Slovarji Inštituta za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU, portal Fran